The Mist Asylum for Freaks and Sexual Deviants
by WanderingGambler
Summary: Zabuza, Kisame and Raiga never did want to talk about their time in the Seven Swordsmen. Although it has nothing to do with the cruel and bloodthirsty nature of the village itself, more the eccentricity of its inhabitants. May contain Choujuurou, sorry.
1. Kakuzu

_Disclaimer, A/N and all that jazz: We don't own Naruto... or any of it's characters... but if we did, you'd be wishing for the old "plot" back! Boring and introductory chapter is boring and introductory. Tatsuya and Kyouki aren't canon characters, hence why their appearances have more description (which implies that much describing went on ¬.¬) yadda yadda... there's no real reason why Kakuzu is in this chapter but... anyway! _

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Once upon a time, there was a man named Kakuzu. He gave out 'financial advice' to different organisations for the not so small fee of 1,000,000ryo an hour. And as it just so happened, on the one day that Kisame Hoshigaki and Zabuza Momochi decided to take up a mission together, leaving their slightly less mentally stable comrades behind, Kakuzu found himself advising the somewhat notorious organisation knows as the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Hidden Mist.

There are many things you should never assume about an organisation of professional serial killers and quite high on that list of things is that their base of operations will always be spotlessly clean. However, there is a huge difference between being scrupulously clean and displaying such a lack of hygiene skills that it is almost impossible to see the entrance to your own home through the masses of discarded electrical appliances and various other things, that would have appeared to have accumulated over many years. However, as far as Kakuzu was concerned, the location was of little importance, just so long as he got paid he would be able to leave as a somewhat content man.

Although, after searching for several minutes and not finding the entrance, but instead a small, scrawny looking boy with glasses and pale blue hair, any rational person would assume that the sensible thing to do would be to stop and ask someone who knew the place better. However, just from the sight of the boy, Kakuzu had his doubts about whether he actually belonged in the organisation or not, and so settled for the simple question of, "who are you?"

"I...I...I'm C-Choujuurou...?" the boy stuttered out in response, the sheer depth of Kakuzu's voice enough to make him tremble with fear. Of course, it was of little help that Choujuurou's height, or lack thereof, meant that whether Kakuzu had the intention of being intimidating or not, he was looming over the boy in a rather menacing manner.

Had his face been visible through the mask, it would have been clear that Kakuzu was giving the boy a very disgusted look as he asked his second question, "And are you a member of the Seven Swordsmen of the Hidden Mist?"

If he had been talking to anyone else, Choujuurou would have managed to stutter out a simple 'yes' or at least manage to give a shallow nod. However, the fact that there was not one aspect of Kakuzu's physical appearance, nor his personality that did not terrify Choujuurou to his very core meant that the poor boy was left with no other option than to put his tail between his legs and run as far away as he could. As a ninja, Kakuzu was not at all uncomfortable with the concept of following someone, however in his honest opinion this 'Choujuurou' really wasn't the kind of person who could lead him to anything valuable. And so, in a last and somewhat futile attempt to find the entrance, Kakuzu looked up to the roof, and it was there that he saw a skylight. Taking an almighty leap, Kakuzu jumped and landed on the roof, after brushing the dust off his clothes Kakuzu walked over to the skylight, opened it and jumped through out. Landing heavily on the floor with a loud 'thump'.

"...and he was staring at me, Mangetsu. He tried to get me...There he is, that's him! HE'S COME BACK FOR ME!" Choujuurou stuttered out to a slightly older and extremely unimpressed looking man.

"Just...just take him, eh" Mangetsu replied, his horribly fake Canadian accent was fairly easy to hear through the monotonous tone he had put on. He pushed a few strands of off-white hair out of his purple eyes as he spoke, as some form of subconscious attempt to make people notice what were – in his opinion, his strikingly beautiful features. And credit where credit is due, he was rather pretty for someone with a snaggletooth.

Although he was never really one for profanity, that was one offer Kakuzu really would have loved to tell this man where to shove. However, his reply would have certainly been drowned out by what was going on, slightly to the left of him.

"YOU, WOMAN. CLEAN THIS MESS UP RIGHT NOW!" A tanned man, with shoulder-length hair such an odd shade of purple that there was almost no question it had come straight out of a bottle, and eyes so orange that you would easily pass them off as the symptom of some rare, yet extremely deadly tropical disease – yelled at a younger woman, who merely stood there with her arms folded and her eyes shut, leaning against the wall as if she had gone completely deaf and couldn't hear him.

"...no. Go to hell, Tatsuya." the girl replied, not even bothering to open her eyes. Although it was probably better that she didn't, as her appearance was slightly more unusual than the man's. Her skin being so deathly pale that it just reaffirmed the whole disease theory, and her hair so long and wavy that it was not at all practical for a ninja, not to mention that its bizarre greenish colour gave it the appearance of seaweed.

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN NO? AS LONG AS KISAME AND ZABUZA ARE GONE, I'M IN CHARGE HERE! CLEAN IT UP! NOW."

"I don't see why you're so insistent on making Kyouki clean it up, eh." Mangetsu, turned his attention from Kakuzu to the purple-haired man, who was now giving him a murderous glare. "Half the garbage we're buried in at the moment is the result of your last temper tantrum, eh."

Kakuzu cleared his throat loudly, attempting to get their attention. However, whatever effect this had was overshadowed, by the high-pitched, effeminate scream that Tatsuya let out.

"Wh-who are you?" Tatsuya yelled, trying to reassert himself as being the alpha male after his scream had probably pushed his position on the ranking even lower down than Choujuurou.

"You should know, you invited me here..."

"Oh, I remember now!" Tatsuya replied, a flicker appearing in his eyes that made him look even more demonic than he previously had... everyone was sure the correct term to describe it would be 'insanity'. "MANGETSU, SCRAPE CHOUJUUROU OFF YOUR SHOULDER!

"Tatsuya... what have you done?" The woman – who Kakuzu had assumed by a process of elimination was Kyouki, asked. Opening her eyes in order to shoot Tatsuya a rather worried glance, and reveal that she had such a case of heterochromia that whatever this disease was, she was definitely suffering it worse than anyone else.

"I invited Mr Kakuzu here to give us ideas on how to save money!"

"Mr Kakuzu...?" She repeated in a ever so slightly horrified tone, narrowing her eyes as she spoke.

"But...why, eh?" Mangetsu asked, although he felt that no reason Tatsuya would give him would ever justify the five minutes he had just spent with Choujuurou crying on his shoulder.

"Because I was using my initia...inish...My brain!"

"We should give him credit for knowing how to use something so small." Kyouki muttered to Mangetsu.

"Yeah, if only the same thing could be said for his other small things, eh..."

"OH, VERY FUNNY. NOW SHUT UP AND RESPECT MY AUTHORITY!"

_Half an Hour Later_

Tatsuya, Choujuurou and Mangetsu were still sat on the floor listening to Kakuzu's rant. Choujuurou, sobbing silently whilst hiding behind a blank faced Mangetsu. Tatsuya, on the other hand, looked delighted...probably because he had earlier suggested that perhaps Choujuurou would be more comfortable if he felt that Kakuzu was like Santa, and that in order to better express that idea, Kyouki would have to sit on Kakuzu's knee. Now of course, he was highly amused by Kyouki's blatant distress.

"...although – back in my day – money was worth a lot more..." Still continuing his talk which was now so far off topic he probably didn't even know his own name any more, Kakuzu shifted slightly

"and another thing, that Konan she's always wasting money! I hate Konan so much. Blue isn't even her natural hair colour **and **she's an orphan! I hate orphans... they're always whining. Stupid whipper-snappers..."

"Who's Konan?" Choujuurou asked in a low whisper just praying he wouldn't incur the wrath of Kakuzu.

"Does it matter, eh?" Mangetsu replied. "He's pretty much proved he's completely senile anyway, eh."

Just then, the doors at the other side of the room burst open, revealing Kisame and Zabuza, who to everyone save for Tatsuya, seemed like a beacon of hope.

"...IT ISN'T FUNNY AND YOU KNO-" Zabuza paused half way through his sentence.

"What. The. Hell." Kisame said slowly, standing next to Zabuza, who immediately turned the blame on Tatsuya.

"What have you done?"

"TYPICAL ZABUZA _'I'M A DICK, SO I'M GOING TO BLAME YOU FOR THIS'_ WELL I HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING WRONG!" Tatsuya yelled in his defence.

Kakuzu got up slowly and using his stealth skills (which amongst this people, really just required tiptoeing) walked to the door, trying to leave under cover of the chaos Tatsuya was making. He dragged (a now blank) Kyouki with him.

"Uhh, you know we kind of need to keep her" Kisame – who was still stood in the doorway – said , grabbing Kyouki's arm. However, the instant he looked up Kakuzu had completely disappeared. "Jesus, we're such bad ninja..."

"Kisame... will you... let go of my arm... ?...you know … so I can collapse..."

"Oh, sure thing..." he released his grip on Kyouki's shoulder, causing her to immediately fall down on her knees.

"...thanks..."

"Not that I'm complaining or anything, but why are you two back so early, eh?" Asked Mangetsu, the only person (with the exception of Tatsuya, who doesn't really count) who wasn't still in shock after their encounter with Kakuzu.

"It's a long story." Zabuza replied bluntly, clearly still raging after his argument with Tatsuya.

"We didn't finish the mission" Kisame sighed "Zabuza had a little problem..."


	2. Zabuza Hates Twilight

"We didn't finish the mission" Kisame sighed "Zabuza had a little problem..."

"IT WAS MORE THAN A LITTLE PROBLEM AND YOU KNOW IT!" Zabuza yelled, his fists clenched in irritation.

"My god Zabuza, your hormones are all over the place, you're such a woman!"

"...Someone stab him in the face so I don't have to." Zabuza murmured, he would have happily done the task himself, had it not required far too much effort than he was willing to waste on Tatsuya.

"Well, since that creepy man is gone, we might as well just carry on with whatever it was we were doing" Choujuurou said pulling out a twilight book.

"AGH!" Zabuza grimaced, practically pushing himself into the wall. Although, whether it was to escape Choujuurou or the book he was reading, wasn't entirely clear.

"What's the matter with you, eh?" Mangetsu asked with a slightly perplexed facial expression, as he looked up from where he sat on the floor, comforting his ever so slightly traumatised friend.

"Nothings 'wrong' with him, Mangetsu. It's just that Zabuza the woman is scared of the ickle vampires, if you're going to be so pathetic why don't you just leave and get pregnant, Zabuza!"

"Actually Tatsuya, Zabuza has a fairly good reason to be afraid of them..." Kisame replied, attempting to sound like the voice of reason, although the amused smirk plastered on his face betrayed him.

"What? That he got raped by one?" Tatsuya asked, blinking in disbelief.

"I might as well have been!" cried Zabuza, who had now crawled into a corner and assumed the foetal position.

"Yeah, I know the feeling..." Kyouki sighed. Had Zabuza not retreated to the darkest corner of the room, she'd have patted him on the back, but instead she resolved to do it to Mangetsu, who was the closest possible option.

"Wait, how did Zabuza almost get r-raped by a vampire?" Choujuurou asked, struggling slightly with the word rape, as he was still incapable of saying 'sex' without blushing furiously.

Kisame glanced over at Zabuza, who by now was so wrapped up in muttering to himself that it was obvious he would be incapable of explaining anything. And then with a heavy sigh, Kisame began, "well, when we were on that mission..."

_A Day Earlier_

The majority of missions the Mist ninja were forced to go on, usually involved trudging through various bogs, marshes and in this case, forests. For the majority of them, Kisame and Zabuza in particular, walking through a dark forest was not even vaguely unnerving. However, even for two very accomplished ninjas, the sight of a pale... and strangely sparkly man, standing alone in a dark forest, was a bit more than unusual.

"Kisame...what the hell is that?" Zabuza squinted slightly, trying to work out if he had just been walking for longer than he thought and was beginning to hallucinate.

"From this angle, it looks like a hobo..." Kisame commented absently mindedly, momentarily thinking the same thing as Zabuza. However, after blinking a few times, he confirmed what he had just said. "A really shiny hobo."

"A really shiny hobo?" Zabuza repeated, giving Kisame a very disgruntled look. "Really...I'm so glad you're our leader"

"Well, if you really want to find out then why don't you go ask? I'll wait right here."

Even Zabuza knew it was never a good idea to argue with Kisame. Not because of the shark man's violent and bloodthirsty nature though, just because verbal disagreements with him usually lead to primary school insults and terrible puns. And so, not wishing to be parted with his bed for a few extra hours whilst Kisame claimed he looked stupid, Zabuza decided it would probably be best just to approach the suspicious man. Upon getting closer to him Zabuza found it strange that for someone who sparkled so much, the man had made no effort to comb his damn hair...maybe Kisame was right and he was actually a hobo. However Zabuza must have been thinking out loud because the man seemed to notice him immediately.

"Do I...dazzle you?" he asked, being all but 3 inches away from Zabuza's – twitching and extremely horrified looking, face.

"No! What the hell, just who are you?" Zabuza asked, jumping back slightly. Still with the same horrified look plastered across his face.

"Edward Cullen. The most amazing, pure blood vampire, ever to be born"

"Well...fair enough then" Zabuza quickly turned his back on Edward, his eyes darting from side to side as he walked – at as quick a pace as he could manage without actually running, back to Kisame.

"So, who was he?"

"I dunno, some pixie or something." Zabuza shrugged, brushing past Kisame.

"Well..." Kisame said, looking back over his shoulder at said 'pixie' and arching a brow "that pixie is giving you a seriously creepy look" and indeed, Edward was looking at Zabuza with the same expression Orochimaru gets when he comes across an under aged, orphan boy.

"I don't care. The sooner we get this mission over with the better! If we leave those idiots alone for too long then we won't have a village to go back to."

"I suppose so, just don't come crying to me if you run into that guy in a dark ally..."

"Tch, like he could actually do anything. I'll kill the bastard if he comes near me."

"If you say so..."

_Later That Night_

Rather than travelling overnight, Zabuza and Kisame had decided to stay in a nearby village. Which was of great benefit to Zabuza, as his lazy nature immediately drew him to anywhere with a bed. However, unlike usual, Zabuza was finding it extremely difficult to actually get to sleep. And after what felt like hours of tossing and turning, he could have sworn that he felt a strange presence in the room with him. Opening his eyes slightly, he managed to see the outline of a person... with really messy hair... actually it looked more like the outline of a tramp than anything else. Of course, Zabuza being Zabuza, he didn't feel the need to turn the light on and confirm his suspicions, he'd get by just by shouting profanity whilst working on the assumption that whoever it was, he'd be able to beat them within an inch of their life.

"but...I thought I dazzled you...?" The figure asked, with a very hurt and offended tone of voice – in response to Zabuza's profanity.

"What the?" Zabuza yelled, immediately reaching for the light switch. Although seeing the figure illuminated was in no way comforting for him, "Why the hell are you here?"

"I was-"

"Were you watching me sleep?"

"...yes"

"WHY?"

"because the lion fell in love with the lamb, what a sick maso-"

"Did you just accuse me of bestiality?" Zabuza yelled, clenching his fists.

"No I-"

"Then you just called me a sheep, didn't you?" Concluding that Zabuza was probably shouting more at himself than anyone else, Edward decided to continue talking in the hope that his words might just get through.

"Well, yes, but that wasn't what I-"

"So you just called me gay?"

Edward, now felt as though he was touching on a rather deep insecurity of Zabuza's. And so, decided it best just to avoid this particular question entirely, "As I was saying, what I meant was-"

"You did, didn't you? You just called me gay, you little shit!" Before Edward could reply, Zabuza picked up his sword and cut him straight across the chest. But much to Zabuza's absolute horror and disgust, Edward did not die, in fact he didn't even bleed. Instead, a strange, sparkly substance poured out from his wounds. "Oh my god...IT'S AN IMMORTAL PIXIE!"

Zabuza screamed, running down the hall to where Kisame was and banging repeatedly on his door.

"What is it, Zabuza?" A bleary-eyed Kisame asked. The whole shark-like appearance he had was really not improved by bloodshot eyes. So much so that Zabuza actually delayed his response, unable to work out which of his two 'companions' terrified him more. 

"THAT PIXIE, HE CAME IN THROUGH MY WINDOW AND STARTED WATCHING ME SLEEP" Kisame blinked and stared at Zabuza for a bit, completely ignoring what Zabuza had just said.

"Zabuza...are you wearing... Spiderman footed pyjamas?"

"WHAT DOES THAT MATTER, THAT BLOODY PIXIE WAS WATCHING ME SLEEP THEN HE BLED GLITTER ALL OVER THE PLACE. He's...GARY GLITTER!"

"Maybe...maybe he just...wanted to see...if you... sucked your thumb whilst sleeping... you know … to go with the outfit and all" Kisame managed to choke out between fits of uncontrollable laughter.

"Yeah well... YOU'RE BLUE!"

"That's the best you can do Zabuza? Honestly, you call me immature..."

"Shut up! Stop patronizing me and get rid of that damn pixie!"

"I don't know what you're expecting me to do, he's not a spider, I can't scoop him up on a piece of paper and drop him out the window." Kisame shrugged. He really did hate the times when he felt more like Zabuza's dad than his co-worker.

"But you could-"

"BELLA~"

"Bella?" Zabuza asked, by now he looked beyond bewildered.

"I think he's talking to you..." Kisame replied monotonously.

"Of course I am!" Edward said, taking Zabuza's hand "Bella, you must come with me so we can raise our mutant demon baby from hell!"

"What? No! Kisame...help me!" Zabuza yelled, using all his strength to prevent Edward from dragging him away.

"You know, I bet teenage girls would pay a lot of money for this shit..." Kisame said, pressing his thumb to his chin in an attempt to look more thoughtful.

"And? What's your point?"

"My point, Zabuza, is that if we take this guy, sell him to some generic romance author, we could make so much money out of it that none of us would ever have to do a mission again!"

"Oh? And you think this guy is just going to let us do that? In case you haven't noticed, HE'S A BIT OF A RAPIST! How are you going to sell him without him going all rapey on you?"

"Really Zabuza, you're the one he wants to rape, and besides, you underestimate me. " Kisame said, reaching for something, no Samehada but a large wooden poll which he used to smack Edward across the head with. Much to Zabuza's surprise, Edward actually collapsed from the impact of the blow. "Now, you grab his arms, I'll grab his legs, and no one will ever need to know that we just killed a gay pixie."

_Back In The Present Day_

"Wait, so you actually sold someone a dead pixie, eh?" Asked Mangetsu, not that he would have put it past any one of them to do such a thing.

"Well, he wasn't dead when we sold him..." Kisame replied, in a way that made it seem as if that was somewhat better.

"and he just – mysteriously died – in the space of a day?" Tatsuya asked.

"Well no, the woman we sold him to put him in a room somewhere in her house, but even then Zabuza still didn't feel safe. So, after she paid us in full, we went back in through her windows, rolled him up in a carpet and threw him off a bridge. I'm pretty sure he'll be dead by now... everyone knows pixies dissolve in water."

"Well that's...pretty bulletproof...so wait, you actually got the stupid woman to pay you? So we never need to do missions again, right?" Tatsuya asked, being overly optimistic.

"No, Tatsuya!" Zabuza, shouted suddenly jumping up and out of the foetal position. "Because of you! You and your stupid ass schemes we need to use _ALL _of that money to repair this place!"

"IT'S NOT MY FAULT, IT'S THE WOMAN'S! IF SHE HAD DONE THE DAMN CLEANING LIKE SHE WAS SUPPOSED TO-"

"Why hasn't anyone stabbed you yet? I asked like twenty minutes ago..." Zabuza interrupted, suddenly feeling more like his old, murderous self again.

"...this day really couldn't get any worse, eh?"

"I'm back~" Came a voice which sent shivers down the spine of each and every one of the swordsmen.

"...Spoke too soon, eh." Mangetsu said, not even wanting to glance at Raiga, out of fear that he'd turn to stone if he did.

"Well, I don't know about you guys but I had the most am-"

"Raiga. We all know you were out pedoing. So just be quiet, we've all been mentally scarred enough as it is..." Kyouki said.

"What? So I don't even get a flashback?"

"No Raiga, and you know why that is? It's because you're a pedofile, and that's slightly worse than being a woman!" Tatsuya shouted, clearly in a mood after finding out he had just wasted all the organization's money.

"Well," Kyouki sighed, standing up and dragging Mangetsu to his feet in the process – as his arm that had once been draped around her shoulders in an attempt to comfort her after the Kakuzu ordeal, now had a death grip on them, out of fear of Raiga, "I don't know about the rest of you... but I'm off to drink away the few brain cells I have left in order to forget this."


	3. When Kisame Is Drunk

"Oh my god...I'M BLUE! I THOUGHT I WAS JUST REALLY COLD!"

"Yes, Kisame. You've been blue for some time now, eh..." Mangetsu said, after having listened to his self-proclaimed leader point out the blatantly obvious for what seemed like hours, he along with everyone else was now bored to the point of tears.

"But...IT'S AMAZING...I'm amazing."

"Sure Kisame, whatever you say..." Choujuurou muttered under his breath, even his seemingly limitless patience was wearing thin.

"DAMN RIGHT WHATEVER I SAY! YOU KNOW WHY WHATEVER I SAY GOES? 'CUZ I'M THE LEADER!" Kisame paused for a few seconds, contemplating whether it would just be better to smack Choujuurou upside the head, or continue on with his ramblings. "...FOLLOWING THE LEADER, THE LEADER, THE LEADER~"

"So... whose bright idea was it to get him drunk?" Kyouki covered her ears in a desperate attempt to drown out Kisame's less than perfect singing. "I swear, I will rip their eyes out of their sockets."

"It was Zabuza...and great as it would be to stab him in the face for it, he's gone for a 'walk' with Raiga..." Mangetsu replied, so exasperated that he forgot to add the 'eh' at the end of his sentence.

"And you know why that is?"

"No...but I bet you're going to tell us...eh..."

"DAMN RIGHT I AM! It's because Zabuza's gay!" He looked up, unable to tell if the looks on the faces of his three colleagues were from disbelief or boredom, although he was in such a state of euphoria that he settled on the latter. "...I'M BLOODY TELLING YOU! I saw his boyfriend...who looks like a girlfriend!"

"...Do you think that if we start ignoring him he'll get bored and just leave...?" Choujuurou turned to Mangetsu, his eyes now glazed over with desperation.

"Not likely. Kisame's excessively violent and bloodthirsty on a regular day, if we start ignoring him we may push him over the edge... then god only knows what'll happen, eh..."

"Oh my god, you guys!"

"...speaking of pushing people over the edge, here comes the poster child for birth control..." Kyouki muttered.

"I was just watching Avatar and there were these blue people and-" Tatsuya stopped midway through his sentence, staring at Kisame as if the two of them had never met before. Then, with a look of absolute horror, he let out a less than manly scream of "GOOD GOD, THERE'S ONE OF THEM AMONG US!"

"Is he confusing reality with tv again, eh?" Mangetsu asked, arching an eyebrow. Although by now he already knew the answer.

"Looks like it..." Choujuurou let out a shaky sigh, being both the newest and the most out of place member, around people like Tatsuya he really did feel like he was way out of his depth.

"Why does anyone actually put up with him?" Kyouki muttered, if it were up to her, they'd have long since locked Tatsuya in a cupboard under the stairs and completely forgotten about him.

"Because, Kyouki. He's like a goldfish. One day, he'll get really fat... and then I'll eat him!" Kisame said so casually it was more like he was talking about the weather rather than eating his team mate.

"Well...that's my curiosity settled..."

"Y-you're going to eat me? SHIT, I KNEW THEY WERE COMING FOR ME!" Tatsuya screamed – failing to take into account Kisame's somewhat inebriated state. Not that it would have mattered if he had anyway, he had always suspected Kisame thought of him as more of a snack than a person. Tatsuya attempted to run for his life but due to a lack of both coordination and common sense, he ran into the wall instead, knocking himself out.

"What a mono-synaptic cretin." Choujuurou being Choujuurou, didn't really understand that this wasn't much of an insult...

"MY GOD CHOUJUUROU, YOU REALLY ARE A NERD! YOU KNOW WHAT? ONE DAY YOU'LL JUST TURN INTO ONE BIG – WHY DO YOU GUYS GET SUCH POINTY SWORDS... WHY CAN'T SAMEHADA BE LIKE THAT? ... I'M GOING TO FILE HIM DOWN!"

"Really Kisame, I think it's time you went to lie down, eh." Mangetsu said with a total lack of emotion, after the momentary excitement of Tatsuya being knocked out cold had passed, he remembered exactly why it was they were all on the brink of suicide. Not to mention he wasn't about to point out that only Zabuza and Raiga could go so far as to call their swords pointy.

"Maybe you're right Mangetsu" Kisame nodded, standing up. For the first time that day, he had given his comrades the faintest glimmer of hope... which he proceeded to shatter almost instantaneously with his next outburst, "...MY GOD, KYOUKI!"

"...what?"

"YOU'RE REALLY SHORT!" he paused for a moment looking at the heights of the other two

remaining swordsmen "No, wait... you're not short...I'M JUST REALLY TALL...I must be terrible at limbo!"

"I never imagined he'd be like this... I always had drunken Kisame down as more of the argumentative asshole type, eh..." Mangetsu said, his despair evident in both his voice and facial expression.

"Well Mangetsu, you know what...YOU'RE NOT REALLY CANADIAN. YOU'VE NEVER EVEN BEEN TO CANADA, SILLY BETCH!"

"How dare you, eh! You're drunk, you have no idea what you're talking aboot, eh!"

"Yes Mangetsu and you're delusional, but tomorrow, I will be sober!"

Mangetsu stuttered a bit as if he was about to say something else, but eventually gave up and stormed out of the room, slamming the door shut on his way out.

"Wow... just wow... and not in a good way" Choujuurou said, glancing at Kyouki. His mutterings not actually referring to Mangetsu's tantrum, but to the fact that he and Kyouki were now the only ones left in the room with a drunken Kisame. "...did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"There's someone at the door..." Both of them sat in silence for a few moments, before Choujuurou being as bright as he was decided to use this new found hope as an excuse to get as far away from Kisame as possible, "I'LL GET IT!"

"But...don't leave me alone with him..." Kyouki protested, however Choujuurou had already run out of the room and down the corridor before she could do anything about it. "Damn you..."

"Thank god I'm out of there." Choujuurou muttered to himself, not really taking into account that knowing his luck, this situation was probably a bit of a double edged sword. When he opened the door, he was faced with a tall and (extremely) fat man. "...Who are you?"

"Akatsuchi." The man replied, a ridiculous grin plastered across his face.

"I don't know an Akatsuchi..."

"Yeah don't worry about it, you will when you reach the summit of the five kages..."

"The what?"

"Nothing." Akatsuchi replied, avoiding eye contact with Choujuurou, who was now highly confused. "Anyway, I am here...because I made these biscuits..." he then proudly held up a small box, expecting Choujuurou to take some form of interest in its contents.

"Yes...how nice for you..."

"You want a biscuit, don't you?"

"No, not really...I-I mean thank you... but no..." Choujuurou looked up immediately after giving his answer, and seeing Akatsuchi's face contort into and expression of anger, he let out a small yelp.

"Yes you do! I worked hard on these! I'll give them to you for free, just take the biscuits!"

"But I don't want..."

"YES YOU DO!" Akatsuchi said, shoving the box into Choujuurou's hands and running away as fast as his fat boy legs could carry him. Choujuurou sighed and shut the door, there was nothing that made him more suspicious than a box of biscuits from a fat Iwagakure ninja. However, before Choujuurou could actually walk away the door flung open, hitting him in the back of the head and knocking him into the wall.

Meanwhile back in the living room, Kyouki found herself in a situation far worse than Choujuurou's, or at least so she thought. He had left her alone with a drunken Kisame, who was now flicking through some book whilst muttering various nonsensical things to himself.

"Kisame... what are you doing?" She asked in the same unamused manner a mother would use, after witnessing her child eat a mouthful of worms.

"Trying to work out the best way to eat Tatsuya! You see... I think he'd go well with pasta!" He replied, holding up the book and pointing to a random picture in an attempt to illustrate his point.

"Ok, now Kisame... you remember that conversation we had once, about how I can't actually read?" she asked, receiving a shallow nod in response, "Yeah well... even I know that isn't a cookery book. In fact, I think it belongs to Raiga."

"...Stupid book. Trying to trick me! WELL I SEE RIGHT THROUGH YOU!" he slammed the book down on the floor and immediately turned his attention to the mirror at the other side of the room.

Kyouki, turned in the opposite direction and began staring out the window, desperately trying to ignore the drunken shark-man.

"Oh my god..." Kisame said, putting one hand on his face "Who cut my face open? I'm going to kill the betch who dunnit...no wait, THEY'RE GILLS! I HAVE GILLS ON MY FACE!" bored with the lack of reaction he was getting he removed his hand from his face, lightly brushing it off his arm and feeling the same rough pattern on his shoulder.

"You know maybe you should-" Kyouki turned round to face Kisame for the first time in five minutes and immediately froze. "Kisame...why have you taken your shirt off?"

"Because, I have gills on my shoulder! Isn't that amazing?...I wonder where else I have them..."

Although Kisame never quite managed to remove his next layer of clothing, before Kyouki let out a horrified yell of, "STOP STRIPPING!"

"But...my gills..." he pleaded, as if she might actually take it as an excuse for him trying to strip in front of her.

"No! Just... hurry up and put your shirt back on!" she said, picking it up off the floor and handing it to him.

"I think we may have come in at a bad time..." Raiga said, he and Zabuza having just appeared in the doorway.

"Oh crap... you guys... didn't happen to hear anything we said before that sentence, did you?" Kyouki asked, not even able to turn round and face them.

"Nope, not a word."

"So...what were you two doing?" Zabuza asked, making it painfully obvious that nothing Kyouki could possibly say would change the idea he already had set deep within his mind.

"Nothing I-" Kyouki spun round, yelling at Zabuza whilst blushing furiously. "He was looking for his gills!"

"Uh huh, sure he was..."

"You know what Zabuza... just think whatever you want."

"Fine then, I will!" He smiled, now ridiculously happy that he had found his entertainment for the next few months.

"It's okay Kyouki. I completely understand." Raiga said, sympathetically patting her on the shoulder.

"Really...?" she asked, even at the best of times, Raiga was the type of person who you'd trust only as far as you could throw.

"Yeah, I mean, If Kisame was a little younger I would totally- I'm saying this out loud aren't I? Ooops..."

"There's something seriously wrong with you..." Kyouki brushed Raiga's hand off of her shoulder

trying to put as much distance between the two of them as possible.

"Hey! Hey, Zabuza!" Kisame was obviously so drunk that he was oblivious to everything going on around him.

"...what?"

"SOMEBODY TOLD ME YOU HAD A BOYFRIEND WHO LOOKS LIKE A GIRLFRIEND THA-"

"THAT'S ENOUGH OUT OF YOU!"

"Calm down, Zabuza..." Raiga sighed, as much as he'd have revelled in the sight of Kisame and Zabuza having a bitch fight, he couldn't help but feel as though now really wasn't the time.

"Why should I calm down?"

"Because you're the one who got him into this state in the first place..." Choujuurou said, walking into the room as he rubbing his head where the door had hit him.

"Ah yes... So I did" Zabuza grinned, "wait... where the hell have you been?"

"You just knocked me out...WITH A DOOR!"

"Oh, I am on a roll today! Where's Mangetsu, did I incapacitate him too?"

"No...he's just sulking..." Choujuurou replied, not about to let Zabuza develop a god-complex as well.

"Ugh. You guys are all so damn weird. I've had enough of you all! I'm going to bed!" Kisame said, getting up and staggering out of the room, leaving four highly confused ninja behind.

"Hey Kyouki...he's going to bed. Do you not want to-"

"Shut the hell up, Zabuza." Of course, Zabuza wasn't the kind of person to be put off just by that, but just as he opened his mouth to reply, Mangetsu charged into the room with a bottle of maple syrup in one hand and a hockey stick in the other.

"NOT CANADIAN, EH? WELL, I'LL SHOW YOU! I'LL BEAT YOU IN A GAME OF ICE HOCKEY...where's Kisame, eh?"

"He's gone to sleep." Choujuurou replied "and since Tatsuya is also unconscious, don't you think it would be better if you stayed quiet? If the two of them stay like that we might have a fairly normal day for once..."

"Oh...well then this was all a bit pointless, eh!"

"Yeah well, it's not like we had anything better to do..."


	4. I Choose You, Charizard!

Kisame sat up in his bed, woken by a loud crashing sound that was now echoing around the base. He pulled back the covers and tried to pull himself up, only to find that the room began spinning and his head throbbed painfully.

"Urgh, whoever woke me is going to pay in blood." he groaned, forcing himself to lie back down again. "...Just as soon as this headache passes."

_**2 Hours Previously**_

Tatsuya walked along the corridor, mumbling to himself about the various methods he could use to coerce Kyouki into actually doing some cleaning, or at the very least something vaguely womanly. That was, until his thought pattern was interrupted, by the sound of snoring coming from Kisame's room.

_'Hmm? Fishman's never asleep this late... he must be totally incapacitated.' _Tatsuya's eyes widened when he thought this, as he suddenly realized what Kisame's absence could mean. He spun round on his heels and rushed towards the living room, where the remaining swordsmen were sat, Mangetsu and Choujuurou playing X-Box whilst Raiga watched lingered in a dark corner, Zabuza sat on the sofa making fun of Kyouki.

" So...found any gills yet?"

"Zabuza. For the last time. We weren't doing anything and you know it." she replied, giving him an icy look.

"The last time...as in, the next time I say it... you'll just admit I almost walked in on you guys having sexytime? Well then you-"

"No Zabuza." She interrupted, glaring at him as if she was ready to rip his head straight off his neck, "The last time as in, if you say it again, they'll be finding bits of you over in Konoha." It was at that moment that Tatsuya burst into the room and everyone else let out an audible sigh.

"Get up everyone! I'm in charge now and there are going to be some changes around here!" he yelled excitedly.

"Tatsuya, you are both annoying and hideous. Why you would ever think any one of us would allow you to be leader is beyond me. Now get out before I have your funeral." Raiga sighed, rubbing his temples.

"Yes I am! Kisame is incapacitated and currently unable to continue his duties as leader, so that means that I'm in charge!"

"Why...?"

"Because I'm the strongest...obviously."

"Right...well," Kyouki said getting up from her seat next to Zabuza, "... I have a mission, I really should be doing..."

"No! You're going to do some god damn cleaning for once in your worthless life! Now go... go clean until your fingers bleed!" Tatsuya yelled, pointing his finger at her.

"Yeah... I'll get on that straight away..." she said, rolling her eyes as she walked out of the room and headed straight for the exit.

"Now, Choujuumaro...or whatever your name is. Go get me a drink." Tatsuya said, obviously oblivious to the fact that Kyouki had no intention of following his orders. "WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU TWO GOING?" He shouted after Mangetsu and Raiga, who were just as keen as Kyouki to get as far away from Tatsuya as possible before the shit hit the fan.

"As Kyouki said, Tatsuya. They're going on a mission...something to do with protecting... some guy" Choujuurou said, attempting to calm Tatsuya down.

"Don't be ridiculous, Chimihjuro. They're probably plotting against me, having a meeting to find my one weakness! Well the jokes on them...I DON'T HAVE A WEAKNESS MWAHAHAHA" Tatsuya shouted whilst rubbing his hands together and laughing manically "...and where the hell is my drink?"

Before Choujuurou could answer, Tatsuya's train of thought had completely moved on, and was now focussed on Zabuza, who up until this point, had just sat there silently with a disturbed expression painted across his face. "Now, you. Zabuza the dick! Go re-advertise the organization so that everyone knows I'm the leader! Make posters and leaflets, oh and TV adverts."

Even though there were many millions of things Zabuza could have thought of to say to Tatsuya at that moment in time, the majority of which would earn him a one-way ticket into the deepest depths of hell, he settled on a simple, "No." And with that, he too stood up and left. Leaving behind an infuriated looking Tatsuya.

"HOW DARE HE DISOBEY ME...this calls for evasive action!" Tatsuya clenched his fists and stormed out of the room, shaking with anger. Choujuurou followed him reluctantly, trying to ensure that Tatsuya didn't end up causing too much trouble.

After a short walk they reached Tatsuya's room, which was conveniently situated right next to the stairs. Tatsuya went in and started rummaging around. Although Choujuurou couldn't see what was happening, as Tatsuya's room appeared to be lost in heaps of various assorted rubbish, he could hear various things flying across the room and breaking, eventually Tatsuya appeared holding a red and white ball in his hand.

"I've been saving this for a special occasion... Actually, I had forgotten about it... right up until your name reminded me, Charmander."

Choujuurou immediately smacked his hand off his forehead, before his eyes widened in despair. "Tatsuya... please tell me that's not what I think it is..."

"Yep, it's my Poké Ball" Tatsuya replied grinning "It contains my ultimate weapon which I shall use to defeat Zabuza!"

"...which would be?" Choujuurou asked, in the hope that there was some chance – no matter how small – that Tatsuya might reveal it exploded.

"My Charizard, of course!"

"Oh god..." Choujuurou grimaced "Tatsuya, I really didn't want to be the one who told you this but... Pokémon aren't real... it's just a cartoon!"

Tatsuya stood at the top of the stairs, staring at a now trembling Choujuurou, his eyes wide with shock, "...WHAT?"

"S-Sorry...like I said, I didn't want to be the one to tell you... I was hoping that Raiga... or m-maybe Kyouki would..."

"You're lying! I'll prove it...I CHOOSE YOU, CHARIZARD" Tatsuya then hurled the Poké Ball towards the bottom of the stairs, and in the process of doing so, also managed to hit poor Choujuurou in the forehead. Sending him flying along with the Poké Ball and hitting the floor with a loud crash. However, Tatsuya's main concern was not for his team mate – who he had just knocked down a flight of stairs – but for the fact that his Charizard had not appeared.

"You bastard Chibligeroh..." he muttered, his eyes now burning with rage, "YOU KILLED HIM... YOU KILLED MY PRECIOUS CHARIZARD!"

"What the hell are you doing?" Zabuza asked, reappearing at the foot of the stairs, after hearing the loud crash. "Oh for the love of – Tatsuya did you just push Choujuurou down the stairs?"

"No! The bastard dived down there of his own free will and killed my Cha- wait... Choujuurou? THAT'S HIS NAME?"

"Choujuurou... Charmander... whatever" Choujuurou mumbled as he staggered to his feet, immediately freezing on the spot when he saw a tall figure looming over Tatsuya. "Uh... T-Tatsuya..."

"What is it?" He shouted, still angry over the 'death' of his Charizard. Noticing that Choujuurou was only pointing directly behind Tatsuya rather than saying anything, and that Zabuza was grinning like a maniac, Tatsuya realized that something must be horribly wrong and looked over his shoulder. "K-Kisame...you're awake!...Feeling any better?" he asked, smiling uneasily.

"Run... for your life." Kisame growled, obviously still feeling like death warmed up.

"I'M SORRY, IT WAS ALL CHOUJUUROU'S FAULT! HE'S THE ONE WHO FELL DOWN THE STAIRS!"

Anyway long story short, Tatsuya spent the rest of the day running away from a raging Kisame whilst everyone else rejoiced in his misery... especially Choujuurou.


	5. April Fools

_A/N: This is probably the worst chapter in the whole story...again, sorry. Back when it was being posted on Quizilla, it was a rush to get it out for April Fools day... as opposed to 8 months later like what happens with a lot of our other work..._

"Guess what day it is today?" Zabuza said with such a large and enthusiastic grin plastered across his terrifying face.

"The day you actually get off your fat ass and go to the orthodontist...?" Kyouki asked, grimacing slightly. Of course, she and all the others knew that there wasn't even a snowball's chance in hell of Zabuza ever actually sorting out his face.

"...No." Zabuza replied, arching what would have been an eyebrow... were they actually visible on his face.

"Oh...then what?" Raiga asked with more than a slight hint of disappointment, the idea of Zabuza's face being modified into something at least vaguely acceptable was one of the few things that brought a tiny shard of happiness to the otherwise hate-filled and dreary organization.

"April first!" Zabuza exclaimed. Although from the sheer lack of reaction his team mates gave, he felt his enthusiasm was somewhat misplaced. "...April Fools day?"

"What about it, eh?" Mangetsu asked, still not quite grasping exactly what it was Zabuza was getting at.

"Well it... it's today?" Zabuza stuttered out, astounded by the vacant expressions and... lack of intelligence displayed by his friends "Okay look that's not important... I've thought of an amazing prank we can play on Tatsuya!"

_**15 Minutes Later**_

Tatsuya walked into the living room where all his team mates were. "You know what I just did? I almost fell down the stairs, but my super quick reflexes saved me. You could be doing with some better reactions, Charlotte" he said, looking at Choujuurou, who didn't even so much as blink in response "Maybe I'll teach you someday." After waiting a minute and getting no reply Tatsuya got bored and turned round to talk to someone else.

"Hey, you. Woman! Are you resting again? You are so lazy! LOOK AT THIS PLACE, IT'S A MESS! Now go on, get up and clean it!" It wasn't as though being ignored by Kyouki was something completely out of the blue for Tatsuya, but something about the way that she hadn't even acknowledged him with a rude gesture or a cold stare felt slightly off for Tatsuya, "...STOP IGNORING ME!"

"...So do we have any missions to go on?" Kyouki asked, turning to face Kisame. By now, Tatsuya had become so irritated from her lack of response that he was stood there, poking her shoulder as hard as he possibly could, and she swore that if she didn't focus her attention on someone else, she'd lose all restraint and punch him right between the eyes.

"Can you _believe _this? She's ignoring me! That is so immature!" Tatsuya yelled, attempting to find a balance between glaring daggers at Kyouki and looking at Kisame in the hope of agreement.

"Not today, we've got to go protect... some guy... tomorrow, though." Kisame said, in answer to Kyouki's question, averting his eyes from – the now highly offended looking, Tatsuya.

"So, you're both going to ignore me. Fine, you both be gay together...or whatever the straight equivalent of gay is! I'll just speak to Mangetsu!" Tatsuya turned away from them, now looking at his Canadian comrade.

"Hey Mangetsu, want a game of hockey? Winner gets some maple syrup!" Mangetsu however, followed in Kyouki and Kisame's footsteps and refused to give Tatsuya his much desired attention. Instead, he continued to play videos games with Zabuza. "Fine, FINE. If you want to act like little kids then you do that. I'll go watch TV. I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU!" Tatsuya shouted, trembling with rage.

Tatsuya turned to leave, the one thing he hated more than anything else was to be ignored, to be in a room full of people and not receive even the vaguest hint of attention. And he was now so fed up with everyone's behaviour that he felt the mere sight of them would hurl him into a temper tantrum. However, the whole prank would be wasted if he just walked out without another word, or at least, so Mangetsu thought.

"So, when's his funeral, eh?" he asked, looking at directly Zabuza, with a somewhat blank expression painted across his face.

"...What?" Zabuza was caught slightly off guard by Mangetsu's question.

"The funeral. When is Tatsuya's funeral, eh?" Mangetsu asked again, a huge, sinister smile cracked on Zabuza's face when he finally caught on to what the pseudo-Canadian was saying.

"Oh, I don't know, should we even bother having one? It was so funny when I found him, he looked like he had fallen down the stairs. I laughed for about ten minutes before I could tell anyone!" Zabuza replied with a gleeful look on his face. He had always fantasised about telling everyone the joyous news of Tatsuya's death, and although this may not have been the real thing, it was close enough to make him happy.

"But I love funerals! If we're not going to have one we should at least light some candles for him and then clean out his room...then bury him!" Raiga said, irrespective of whether he was actually dead or not, he – like everyone else, was all for burying Tatsuya.

"What? WHAT? WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'FUNERAL'? I'M NOT DEAD, I NEVER FELL DOWN THOSE STAIRS, I... I SAVED MYSELF!" Tatsuya yelled, spinning round on his heels and flailing his arms around in a desperate attempt to get their attention. Not that anyone was actually planning on giving it to him.

"OK, someone go get the candles, then we'll burn all his crap." Kisame said, "...and we'll need to find someone to replace him."

"I met this really good ninja yesterday. _She _could really kick butt." said Choujuurou, as he stood up. Whenever someone was told to go fetch or clean up something, the duty usually fell upon him.

"You can't replace me, I'm not dead! Even if I was, you can't replace me with a woman!" Tatsuya said, now beginning to panic.

"On second thoughts, it wouldn't be right to burn his stuff." Kisame began, and for a moment Tatsuya's face lit up "We should sell it and give it to a charity for domestically abused women... and orphans!" and then it went dim again.

"YOU BASTARDS! I'LL GET YOU FOR THIS, EVEN IF I AM DEAD! I'LL...I'LL HAUNT YOU GOOD!" It soon became impossible to hear what the other swordsmen were saying, since Tatsuya was yelling so loudly. However, they still pretended they couldn't hear him, even if their ears were close to bleeding.

After exhausting himself, Tatsuya retreated to a corner where he hugged his legs to his chest. "Maybe I really am dead...why am I still here though? Surely if I was dead I would be in a world where the woman did the cleaning...what if I have to stay like this forever? WHO WILL MAKE HER CLEAN?" By now he was so busy with his insane ramblings he hadn't noticed that Kyouki had given up on pretending he didn't exist and was now cocking an eyebrow at him. "I'll have to watch as this place turns to chaos. I can't do it. I can't watch as the woman does whatever the hell she likes. I can't just sit here without anyone being able to hear me. Who'll take care of my Charizard? And all my digimon...they need to be fed..." His voice changed to a low mumble as he began to rock back and forth. After another five minutes or so Tatsuya began to pulling at his hair and let out a low chuckle. He then held out his right hand and gasped.

"...Oh god! I'M DISAPPEARING! Soon I'll be completely gone...but...but I WANT TO LIVE!" Tatsuya continued to yell, losing what little sanity he still had.

"Hey look, it's 12 o'clock, eh!" Mangetsu said.

"You're right..." Kyouki said, turning to Tatsuya and giving him a rather worried look, "...I think we broke him."

"WOMAN, YOU CAN SEE ME!" Tatsuya yelled, springing to his feet and clutching her by the shoulders, practically shaking her like a rag doll. "It's not ideal if it's _you_. But at least there's someone I can annoy!"

"Tatsuya..." Kisame sighed, "We can all see you, it was a joke!"

"WHAT?" Tatsuya had released his grip Kyouki's shoulders, pushed past her and was now screaming directly in Kisame's face. "WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TO ME?"

"Because it's April Fools day, _apparently_..." Raiga said, making the whole thing sound obvious, even though he himself had no idea about it until an hour previously.

"Zabuza said it would be funny if we all pretended you were dead..." Choujuurou nodded.

"And frankly Zabuza, it wasn't as hilarious as you claimed it would be. You suck." Raiga finished off, folding his arms and leaning against the wall as he spoke.

"Hey, hey, hey! I said it would be funny if we _ignored _him! Mangetsu's the one who took the whole thing too far!" Zabuza pointed a finger accusingly and Mangetsu, pretending to be in complete ignorance of Raiga's comment.

"Yeah, but you all have to admit, watching Tatsuya go insane was pretty hilarious, eh." Whilst everyone else agreed with Mangetsu, Tatsuya spent the majority of the day crying... and glaring at Kyouki whenever she told him to "shut up and take it like a man"...and of course, no one felt sorry for him.


	6. H1N1, it's always changing

"Urgh" Kyouki groaned turning over in bed, her head thumping and throat burning.

"Get up, woman! Zabuza the dick says we've got to go on a mission." Tatsuya said kicking the door frame impatiently.

"I can't, I'm ill."

"Women don't get ill! They spend all their time in the kitchen, and if you have bacteria in your kitchen then health and safety shut you down!"

"Tatsuya." Came the firm, yet hoarse reply, "You, go tell Zabuza I'm sick and I promise, I will pretend to care about whatever shit you're spouting when I feel better." And without another word she fell back to sleep, leaving Tatsuya to wander around aimlessly, without anyone to irritate.

_'Hmm there must be a reason for the woman pretending to be ill, but it can't be a very good one, if that damn woman had one brain cell it'd be lonely...unless it's something other than a virus that makes women feel ill...god' _Tatsuya's eyes widened and he ran full speed into the living room. He burst into the room and didn't even bother to catch his breath before shouting "KYOUKIISPREGNANT"

"...what's he saying, eh?" Mangetsu asked, raising his eyebrow at Tatsuya, who looked like he was mid-way through a heart attack.

"Kyouki...she...she's...pregnant" Tatsuya replied, breathing heavily despite only having run a short distance "My god I've gotten fat..." all the swordsmen looked at him in disbelief, though not about him being fat, they had all felt that he had gained weight recently and were just waiting for someone with a complete lack of tact – like Raiga, to point it out.

"Really? When's it due?" Choujuurou asked, it was only really after prolonged silences that he felt he had the right to speak.

"...Well, I didn't ask..." Even Tatsuya himself wasn't sure whether his delayed response came from the shock of someone actually believing him, or the fact that he himself hadn't thought to rush back to Kyouki's room and demand she told him every detail of her 'pregnancy', the minute the idea entered his head. _Or _indeed, that he had to take time to work out whether or not he wanted to respond to a question from Choujuurou of all people.

"Moreover...who's the father?" Kisame, along with everyone else – save for Mangetsu who merely smacked his head off the wall – had obviously also fallen for Tatsuya's lies.

"Please tell me you guys aren't actually buying this, it's just Tatsuya's usual bullshit, eh. Like that time when she went on a mission with Raiga and he told us all that the two of them had eloped. You all know he just makes this kind of stuff up for lack of better things to do and yet you still believe it, eh!" Mangetsu said, staring at each of his team mates in turn. But before he could open his mouth to say anything more, Zabuza pushed him to the side so that he could speak with Kisame.

"So, Kisame...been trying to find some gills with Kyouki?"

"...what?" Kisame asked, narrowing his eyes in confusion, still oblivious to what the hell Zabuza was talking about.

"I bet it's that Ao guy..." Choujuurou said, moving in front of Mangetsu who had now lost all hope in ever helping his team mates develop even the slightest bit of common sense. After a few minutes of listening to their migraine-inducing babbling, he decided it was probably best if he went to check up on Kyouki. Although the lack of boundaries in their friendship meant that he never really felt the need to knock on her bedroom door before entering, which given the circumstances wasn't the brightest idea he could have had.

" Oh for the love of god Tatsuya. I already told you I'm ill, so just fuck off."

"Calm down, eh. I just came to warn you Tatsuya's telling everyone you're pregnant."

"You know what... I really fucking hate him. Whatever, it's not like anyone is actually going to believe him..."

"Don't be so sure, eh..." Mangetsu sighed, although he decided it was probably not the greatest idea in the world to tell Kyouki just how stupid their co-workers were. "Oh, but come to think of it, I know this great remedy for the flu... it involves maple syrup and well... that's it really, but it'll make you better and able to shout at him in no time, eh!"

Kyouki felt herself cringe slightly, as much as she did like the pseudo-Canadian she actually wished it had been Tatsuya who had intruded on her sleep. That way, not only would he not have insisted on using all his 'medical knowledge' to make her better and be her personal nurse, she also wouldn't have needed to feign a coma to make him give her at least a moment's peace.

_**The Next Day**_

The seven(presently, six, due to Kyouki's absence) swordsmen were sitting on the sofa, with them were two highly dazed and confused looking men. The first of which, Ao, looked like he had wandered straight out of a Village People music video. The second, Utakata, looked like he just plain shouldn't have been allowed out in public.

"So how do we know which one of them is the father...?" Choujuurou asked, even with all his book smarts, he could honestly say he had no knowledge whatsoever of how paternity testing worked.

" Well if it's either of them, it's not Ao. We've told you that already Choujuurou." Kisame replied flatly.

"Why don't you just ask them, eh...?" Mangetsu mumbled, rubbing his temples in despair.

"Well for the obvious reason that they'd lie, of course. That woman probably told them to lie if they were asked, it sounds like the kind of thing a conniving woman would do..." Tatsuya replied, not picking up on the sheer amount of monotony in Mangetsu's voice.

"Conniving? The other day, you told Kyouki if her brain cells were electricity she'd be a walking blackout. Let's be honest, she probably doesn't even know who those two are! He's obviously talking bullshit, yet you guys _still _believe it, eh?"

"So...given the situation..." Tatsuya began, completely ignoring Mangetsu "She'll have to give up work right? I mean seriously... motherhood is a-"

"No Tatsuya." Kisame interrupted flatly, seeing exactly what Tatsuya was getting at.

"Why the hell not?"

" Several reasons: one, that's really stupid...it'd make you happy. Two, if we have a woman around it makes us all look a lot less gay. If she stopped working for us, we'd have to find another generic woman, and then.. you'd spend your whole life whining about how she wouldn't stand for your shit. And ... I guess Kyouki's abilities are a distant third..."

"YOU KNOW WHAT...THERE'S A REASON YOUR NAME IS 'ZABUZA THE DICK'!" Tatsuya immediately stormed out of the room, throwing a temper tantrum because despite his best efforts, things still weren't going in his favour.

"I still don't see why Ao can't be the father..." Choujuurou said, completely ignoring Tatsuya's outburst and Mangetsu's continued protesting.

"Because he's gay, Choujuurou. You know that Kimimaro boy from the Kaguya clan?" Raiga asked, only continuing when he received a reluctant nod from Choujuurou. "Yeah, well he's as gay as him... except Ao isn't quite at the stage where he demands people watch his pretty flower dance...yet."

"Jesus Christ! Where the hell did you come from, Raiga?" Zabuza sprung to his feet, it's always disconcerting when you realize you're talking about babies with a pedophile in the room.

"Oh I've been here all along...lurking in the shadows... thinking about certain future opportunities with that – I'm doing that thing where I really should be shutting the hell up again, aren't I?"

"I still don't see what Ao being gay has to do with anything..." Choujuurou mumbled to himself.

"Seems it's time Kisame gave you 'the talk', Choujuurou."Zabuza sighed "Besides, you're all completely wrong about the father."

_**Meanwhile**_

"So, woman, are you ready to admit you're pregnant yet?" Tatsuya having stormed out on the other swordsmen and having a complete lack of anything better to do, had now begun pestering – a now better – Kyouki.

"No. Because I'm not pregnant...the fact that we are related and hence, share some of the same genes means that my children could turn out like..._you_, and really, that's enough to put me off becoming pregnant." she replied, with a considerable amount more venom than she usually used against Tatsuya.

Of course, whether he had simply missed her point entirely or just ignored it for the sake of not blowing a fuse and bringing the whole building down with his incessant yelling wasn't entirely clear. "Really, because everyone else seems to think you are..."

"Well then, I'll just go set them straight..." Kyouki shrugged, walked towards the living room with Tatsuya practically stepping on her heels. Yelling various parenting tips at her every inch of the way.

"and that's why Kisame is the father... I wonder if the baby will end up being blue too...?" Zabuza said as he sat down.

"Wait, I'm confused. Why am I the father?"

"I just told you!" 

"No you didn't, you said 'and that's why Kisame is the father I wonder if the baby will end up being blue too' then you sat back down again, there was no...explaining...there..." Kisame said, slowing down towards the end and staring at Zabuza as if death itself was hanging over her shoulder.

"Why do you look so terrified, what's the matter with you?" Zabuza turned round to see Kyouki standing behind him and before he could even open his mouth he felt a blinding pain and fell over, writhing in pain. Kyouki had just kicked him full force in the face.

"Anyone else...want to believe Tatsuya's bullshit...?"

"IT'S NOT BULLSHIT! I saw the same thing on _Supernanny _last week!"

"Who let you watch _Supernanny_?" asked Kisame.

"Zabuza... he wanted me to 'piss off' so he put it on and said I might learn something..." That earned Zabuza another kick from Kyouki.

"For God's sake, Zabuza! You know he's not allowed to watch things like that, he's mentally unstable enough as it is..." Kisame sighed, honestly believing that Zabuza would have known better. He then turned to Utakata and Ao, suddenly realizing they were still in the room. "Oh, you two can go, considering she's not actually pregnant and all..."

"Yes she is! She's pregnant!"

"No, I'm not... and unless you want me to do to you what I just did to Zabuza then you should shut the hell up."

"Yeah well, we'll wait nine months and then we'll see which one of us is telling the truth!"

"Wait a minute..." Raiga began, giving Kyouki an extremely suspicious look, "if you supposedly had the flu, how come you got better within the space of a day?"

"I had to be..." she replied, her voice suddenly reverted to being flat and lifeless, "Mangetsu was in nurse mode..."

"Nurse mode?" Raiga asked, arching an eyebrow, as if she had implied that he was 'playing doctor'.

"It's not what you think, I mean he... he genuinely starts thinking he's a nurse...insists on fluffing my pillows every ten minutes."

"I'm going to go put a bandage on my face. I hope you're happy, it hurts like hell!" Zabuza staggered to his feet and walked out of the room, glaring at Kyouki all the while.

"...nothing good ever happens to Zabuza does it?"


	7. Sea World

_A/N: Is Sea World meant to be one word or two? Ahhh I guess we should have just gone with the Tropicarium... there's really nothing else to say other than: if you've made it this far, you sir/madam, have the patient of a saint. Well done!_

* * *

"That was more than a prank you made me think I was dead!" Tatsuya shouted, still angry about the prank the other six had played on him a few days earlier.

"Jesus Christ. It was two chapters ago! Get over it already..." Zabuza muttered, although after 3 hours straight of Tatsuya's whining everything fades into white noise, he still considered the man's voice one of the most painful and soul crushing sounds known to man.

"Well it's not like we actually intended to kill you or anything..." Raiga said, in a half-assed attempt to be the voice of reason.

"I don't care about what you meant to do! None of you have even apologized!"

"Will you quit your bitching if we say we're sorry?" Zabuza said, rubbing his temples.

"No. That's not good enough any more, you need to make it up to me. Besides I have to catch up on the time you spent ignoring me."

"Well what do you want, eh?" Asked Mangetsu.

Tatsuya stood there, frozen. His face so devoid of emotion, he was either so deep in thought he'd lost track of the world around him, or Mangetsu had completely broken him and he had died on his feet. In spite of the others desperately wishing for it to be the latter, Tatsuya eventually broke his silence, with a ear-splitting scream of "…I WANT TO GO TO SEA WORLD"

"Why?" Kisame asked, his voice full of despair... experiences at sea world never ended well for him.

"I like turtles of course!...Why else?"

**At SeaWorld**

"Why the hell are we actually here?" Zabuza complained, he'd actually been forced to stay awake for longer than five minutes and already it was taking its toll on him.

"Because we ran out of aspirin…" Kyouki replied, whilst glaring daggers at a small group of screaming children.

"I thought Kyouki and Mangetsu got us a life time ban from here last time we visited…" Choujuurou hoped that there was the slightest chance they would get thrown out and not actually need to put up with Tatsuya for a full day.

"They did." Kisame sighed "But then Tatsuya wouldn't shut the hell up. So I had to ring them up and 'persuade' them to lift the ban temporarily, now let's just get this over and done with"

"I don't see how persuasion would have convinced th-"

"Choujuurou." Mangetsu interrupted, like everyone else sick of Choujuurou being so clueless, "by 'persuaded' he means he threatened to skin them alive, eh."

Although no matter how much the others complained, they were in no way going to dampen Tatsuya's spirits. As the purple-haired man ran around screaming, like some excitable four year old, "LOOK, LOOK THERE'S A TURTLE, AND A SEACUCUMBER?...Oh. My. God."

"Jesus Christ, what is it now Tatsuya?" asked Kisame, although not out of genuine interest. More that he felt, if they could make Tatsuya think – for at least one moment, that they actually cared about what he said and did, then the could escape from this hell hole sooner.

"IT'S YOUR MUM, or your dad I can't tell. YOU SHOULD HAVE A FAMILY REUNION!"

"Oh for the love of god Tatsuya. Do you have any idea how old those 'oh my god it's a shark, you guys are related, Kisame' jokes are? They might have been funny the first few times, but after being made several thousand times, they're just not. So shut the fuck up, okay?"

"Fine, I'll just find something else to do" Tatsuya sighed, setting off to find someone else to annoy. Although it did take much more time than he anticipated, as everyone else had used Kisame's rant as an excuse to slip away. And so, unable to find anyone else from the organisation to irritate – his excuse for never picking on strangers being that he had 'stranger anxiety', Tatsuya decided to turn to his number one favourite hobby, trying to marry off Kyouki.

Although, he never quite could just go about it in a fairly simple way. No, Tatsuya always had to think of the most elaborate ways to try and marry her off and why should he make exceptions just because he was away from home? Through very questionable means, he managed to disguise himself as an employee, and after finding a man who at least looked vaguely familiar, he set about putting his 'plan' into action.

"Hey, you! Can you help me move this box, I need to feed the sharks."

"Uhh, okay..." The man replied, with a great deal of uncertainty. It would appear than Tatsuya didn't make a particularly convincing Sea World employee, probably because he had the uniform on the wrong way round. Nevertheless, Tatsuya managed to convince the man to follow him into a storage cupboard, where he proceeded to be knocked out cold. The only problem that Tatsuya then faced, was finding Kyouki. Which conveniently, wasn't all that hard either.

"KYOUKI, I NEED YOUR HELP… I NEED YOUR HELP IN A CUPBOARD!"

"You what?...Zabuza didn't show you his video collection did he?"

"No, why? Why won't you help me? I don't see what's wrong with asking for help in a…" At first, Tatsuya wasn't sure whether he was more horrified with himself, or with Kyouki. "THAT IS SO CHILDISH, HOW COULD YOU THINK I MEANT THAT. YOU'RE DISGUSTING... Can you even do that with a woman?"

"What... yes... well maybe you... I uhh...nevermind," she muttered, not quite sure if Tatsuya was mentally stable enough to hear about such things, "I'll help you but this better not be a trick Tatsuya or I swear I'll kill you."

But of course, when the two of them actually reached the cupboard she saw the man sprawled on the floor, still unconscious.

"Tatsuya, what did you do?" Kyouki said turning around but as she did so the door to the cupboard slammed shut and she heard Tatsuya shout at her from behind it.

"I'm not letting you out until you're married!"

"I really should have seen that one coming..." Kyouki muttered to herself, even after two years of living with Tatsuya, she was still slightly amazed that there was someone more obsessed with marrying her off than her own father was. However, somewhere amongst all the profanities she was muttering to herself, she completely forgot that she wasn't alone, and so was completely startled when the formerly unconscious man spoke up.

"Where am I? What happened?" he asked.

"I dunno, my bat shit crazy cousin knocked you out with a broom or something. Now stand back I'm going to break this door down."

"Or we could just go out this door." He said pointing to a door behind them, "have I seen you before? I think I saw you when some insane people dragged me to this base."

"...Don't even ask. Let's just go already."

**Elsewhere in Sea World**

"Why don't you want a reunion with your mum and dad Kisame? Did you guys have a fight?"

"Tatsuya, fuck off. I won't give you another warning." Kisame replied trying his hardest not to murder Tatsuya right there.

"You know, I'd want a reunion with my parents but I can't. You know why I can't, BECAUSE THEY'RE DEAD." Kisame arched an eyebrow at this, he was sure that either it was by Tatsuya's own hand that his parents died, or they were alive and well and just ignoring him. Whatever it was, he'd have to ask Kyouki later. "So you should be grateful your parents are still alive, you are so selfish Kisame!" Tatsuya said completely ignoring Kisame's warning.

That was of course, until Kisame got fed up and punched him in the side of the head. Tatsuya's vision blurred and he fell flat on his face. However, this kind of thing happened to Tatsuya rather often, within seconds of it happening Tatsuya was back on his feet, and pestering Kisame as if nothing had happened.

"You know there's counseling trips you can go on to fix broken relationships right?" Tatsuya looked round to that Kisame had gone a funny plum colour with anger. Even he, in his own little world of insanity knew that he was in danger and set off full speed running as fast as he possibly could, away from Kisame. He jumped over benches and even pushed a woman into in an attempt to slow the land shark down.

"HELP! PLEASE SOMEONE HELP ME. A SHARK HAS ESCAPED AND IS COMING TO GET ME!" Tatsuya screamed at the top of his lungs as Kisame caught up with him. Until 10 men dressed in Sea World uniforms stepped in front of them, stopping both of them in their tracks.

**Meanwhile **

Kyouki stepped out of the cupboard and found herself in front of a large audience, she took another step forward to ask someone where she was. As she put her foot down a loud squeal from by her feet.

"Oops" Kyouki whispered looking down.

**Half an hour later**

"Right, that is it. All of you out, I'm putting the lifetime ban back on all seven of you." All the Seven swordsmen were now standing in the manager of Sea World's office, being shouted at like a group of misbehaving children.

"Why? What did we do?" asked Choujuurou.

"What did you do? WHAT DID YOU DO? That one-" he pointed at Kyouki "ruined the lunch time dolphin show by walking onto the stage half way through and kicking one of the dolphins in the face."

"It got in my way..." she muttered to herself "Anyway, if you're going to have dolphins you shouldn't just leave them lying around the place!"

"I DON'T CARE. Those two," he turned to Tatsuya and Kisame, ignoring the look of glee that had crept across Tatsuya's face when he heard about the dolphins being hurt. "Ran around screaming at each other and injured 5 people. The staff found him" he pointed to Zabuza, "asleep in one of the cleaning supply cupboards with his hands down his pants, 'protecting the thing most precious to him' And I don't even want to start on what that sicko-"He nodded towards Raiga, who was doing his best to whistle 'nonchalantly',"was up to."

"I wasn't doing anything, YOU HAVE NO PROOF!" he cried out hysterically.

"We caught you on camera, now go, all of you get out before I press charges."

"Hey, what did me and Choujuurou do, eh?"

"Well, you nearly killed all of the sea life by trying to fill our tanks with your _'Maple Syrup no Jutsu' _and as for you..." He gazed at Choujuurou for a moment, but immediately looked away when he realized just how pathetic he actually looked "...I don't know what you did but it was bound to be something disruptive and possibly illegal. Now get out before I call the police."

"Ok, let's just go, SeaWorld is a piece of shit anyway." Zabuza said yawning "I'm tired anyway, I've been awake for like half an hour, that's a whole episode, it's gonna take me awhile to recover."

**Later that day**

"And the turtles were all like swoosh as they swam around. Then there was this one clam that was HUGE. The sea cucumbers were awesome that was purple... And kicking that dolphin was probably the greatest thing you'll ever do, woman. I hate dolphins, they're all like 'look at me I can jump through a hoop' and then there are all those people who go and protest about killing the squeaking little bitches. We shouldn't save them we should just kill them... and put them in tuna, it tastes better that way..."

"He's been at that for half an hour... How long until he shuts up?" Tatsuya's pointless – and grammatically incorrect – ramblings had already annoyed Raiga to the point he felt like repeatedly bashing his head off the wall.

"About a week... maybe a month at the most. He'll probably quit it around the same time Kisame stops sulking, eh."

"My god, can't I just kill him already? Killing him would be fun... I could do it with a stapler, if you just let me." Kyouki muttered to herself, still intending to carry out the promise she had made earlier.

"As much as it would be hilarious, no you can't kill him. He's too exploitable right now, if we let him carry on we might just get him to do our missions for us." Zabuza shrugged, fairly content with the possibility of avoiding his work.

"I thought we were supposed to be ninja... are we ever actually going to do a mission where we...you know... use our swords?"

"...Don't be ridiculous Chimecho... YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO GO RUIN EVERYTHING FOR EVERYONE DON'T YOU-"

"There goes the exploitability... you always have to ruin everything, don't you Choujuurou?" Raiga sighed, rubbing his temples as Tatsuya continued to yell randomly at the top of his lungs.

"Yeah...screw you guys, I'm going to bed." and that, was the last anyone heard of Zabuza for at least four days.


	8. Kakuzu Returns

_A/N: This may well have been the first story ever written for this series... just about every time this story comes up I'm yelled at to point out that Tatsuya is not as fat as previously implied... I, however, think that's a lie._

* * *

"Get up, we're going to be late!" Zabuza shouted at Tatsuya who was still lying in his bed despite having a mission to go on.

"Why do I have to go on the mission? I went on a mission last week!" Tatsuya mumbled into his pillow. Unaware, that it had in fact been three years since his last mission, and the majority of self-respecting ninjas managed to go on at least one a week.

"Well then, we'll go without you, good luck finding any food." Zabuza turned and left the rubbish filled room, slamming the door on his way out.

_Half an hour later_

The seven swordsmen found themselves walking through a forest, Tatsuya included even if it had taken Mangetsu threatening to ram a 6ft metal bar up his ass (eh). Even then, he was still in his pyjamas... dragging his sword behind him as he walked whilst talking very loudly about himself to a very uninterested Kisame. Who, at that point would have much rather listened to Raiga rambling on to Mangetsu about his burning desire to 'meet' Suigetsu.

Whilst everyone else was engrossed in their own conversations, Zabuza was walking behind the group watching for bandits. Little did he know that someone had crept beneath his radar and had been following them for quite some time. Suddenly, a huge rock came flying out from behind the trees, heading straight for the back of Zabuza's head. By the time he realized something was wrong it was too late he was knocked out cold and dragged deep into the forest where he awoke in a deep hole...

"You know what? You should bring your brother over to the base sometime!" Raiga said to Mangetsu, apparently no one had noticed the mysterious disappearance of Zabuza either that or they were all too busy with their respective conversations to care.

"Did you hear that?" Raiga asked Mangetsu, after receiving absolutely no response.

"Hear what, eh?" Mangetsu asked, now slightly nervous that it could be Suigetsu.

"It sounds like children laughing." Raiga stated, Mangetsu was somewhat relieved at the knowledge that there was no possible way for it to be Suigetsu, since he had devoted quite some time into ensuring that his younger brother grew up to be utterly miserable. "They really shouldn't be out here alone..." he continued "It's dangerous out here... they could get um...hurt! I think I'll just go check on them, yeah... _check on them_"

Before Mangetsu had the chance to reply, Raiga had already run off – not that Mangetsu really cared – he was just relieved that now Raiga was gone, he could finally feel slightly more at ease.

Now, here is where the part about the mysterious disappearance of Mangetsu would come in, but due to a complete lack of information from Kishimoto and complete laziness on my part, there really isn't anything to write, wow, what a disappointment, eh... Anyway, now to Choujuurou and Tatsuya!

Choujuurou was walking along just praying that Tatsuya would stop talking soon.

"AND YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE IS ANNOYING ABOUT WOMEN?...ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING" Unfortunately for Choujuurou, there was no such luck.

Noticing a speck on his glasses that was bound to start annoying him soon, Choujuurou stopped in order to clean them. Tatsuya however, carried on walking while continuing his rant, clearly unaware that his audience had fallen behind. Whilst Choujuurou was busying himself trying to make his glasses clean, he failed to notice the tentacles across the ground. When they reached Choujuurou they wrapped themselves around his ankles and dragged him backwards into the trees.

"OH MY GOD, IT'S GOING TO EAT ME! HELP!" Unfortunately for Choujuurou no matter how much he kicked and screamed he couldn't get free. Even more unfortunate for him, was that the only person who could hear him was Tatsuya, who, to Choujuurou's despair didn't even bother to turn round.

"Tch. Is that nerd shouting about how much of a nerd he is again? Jesus, we know already." Tatsuya said, briefly halting his self-absorbed ramblings "Well if he's going to be so selfish and only talk about himself, I suppose I'll need to go tell Kisame and the woman about just how god damn awesome I am!"

_5 Minutes (That seemed like 5 days) Later_

"You know what the best thing about me is? I'm not a woman, so I can do every important thing. Those women, they're too stupid to do anything right" Tatsuya carried on ranting, much to the annoyance of the other two remaining swordsmen. "I'm tired, how many hours have we been walking for? Let's rest. I want to rest. Now"

"But it's only been ten minu-"

"NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR YOUR OPINIONS, WOMAN!"

Tatsuya sat down on a log by the side of the path they were walking down, fully expecting the other two to join him, but, instead they just carried on, as if they had never noticed he was there.

"You know, you could at least wait for me! I am the strongest here. Without me you guys are so screwed" No response. "Fine, carry on walking! You guys go on and get yourselves killed, see if I care!" Unknown to Tatsuya, a dark figure was creeping up behind him. When the figure was right behind Tatsuya its arms shot out, covered his mouth and held him back. Tatsuya bit down on his captures hand. "Ugh! Don't you touch me you filthy peasant!" Although he had no time to escape, as the shady figure punched him it the side of the head, knocking him out.

As the figure walked through the forest to where he had put the others he found it strange that the man slung over his shoulder continued to talk, despite being out cold. "Bloody peasants, thinking they can touch me, I'll show them all, I'LL GIVE THEM WHAT FOR!" If he was ever going to do this again, he'd need chloroform.

_Somewhere else in the forest_

"Is it just me, or does something feel a bit...off?" Kisame said turning to Kyouki.

"Yes, it's become strangely quiet around here..." Kyouki replied monotonously. It wasn't as if quiet was a massive problem.

"Yeah, I can actually hear myself think..." The two of them stood in silence for a moment, before coming to a sudden realization "...Tatsuya's missing!"

"That's a bad thing, is it?" Kyouki asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Well no, but the others have disappeared too..."

"Oh well... yeah, I guess that's slightly more problematic... only slightly."

"How can five grown men possibly get lost in their own home? We'll have to split up and look for them. You go that way, I'll go this way" Kisame pointed in two different directions and Kyouki nodded in agreement before they both went their separate ways. Well, I think everyone knows what fate soon befell poor Kisame...

After 10 minutes of fighting through the forest, Kyouki heard noises coming from a nearby cluster of trees, she braced herself, slowly drawing her sword when suddenly, Raiga burst into sight shouting at the top of his voice. "OH, LITTLE BOY~"

As he caught sight of Kyouki, he froze right on spot, staring at her blankly. "...I wasn't running after little children... why would you think that? That's ridiculous! I AM NOT A PEDOFILE!" he managed spit out, eventually.

"Then why are you out here?" Kyouki asked, ignoring the last part of his statement for the sake of her own sanity.

"...I'm out here for the same reason as you." He replied "...and why are you out here?"

"...I'm looking for the others." she replied, narrowing her eyes, although more out of disgust for Raiga's lack of ability to lie, than anything else. " They've gone missing. Now come on you have to help me find them."

And so the two of them walked in what was an extremely awkward silence. Which was perfectly fine for Kyouki, but Raiga on the other hand, took pleasure in insulting, irritating and generally just creeping out the people around him.

"Kyouki, I'm sure you told me once, but I forget. How old are you?"

"17." She replied bluntly, not even bothering to make eye contact with Raiga.

"Oh, it's a real shame you weren't a couple of years younger, we would get on _really well _if you were" If it were at all possible, he could have sworn he saw Kyouki's face turn an even paler shade of white.

"...Let's hurry." She said, quickening her pace, now beginning to see the advantage in having the others around. As they walked in silence again, she began to wonder if Kisame was having any more luck than her. Suddenly, a man pounced in front of them, like a cat He was wearing a mask which covered all of his face, except from his strangely coloured red and green eyes.

"Ah, I found you! And with only a pedofile to defend you!"

"I'M NOT A PEDOFILE!"

"Yes you are. I saw you with those children earlier."

"THOSE PESKY KIDS!"

"Oh god. Not you, not again. Leave me alone." Kyouki cried, her eyes wide staring at Kakuzu. She then turned and ran away at full speed, without even giving a thought towards Raiga, who she was leaving alone with one of the only men in the whole world who somehow managed to be more creepy than Raiga himself.

After a good while, Kyouki managed to slow herself down and realized she was now, completely lost. After battling her way through some thick bushes, she came to a clearing, and in the middle of the clearing was a large hole. Deciding that it probably wasn't a trap, Kyouki looked into it, and when she did, she saw all her team mates at the bottom, the only exception being Raiga.

"He's back! He tried to get me again. You promised me he had left!" she shouted down to them, as if she was the only one in an unfortunate situation, and the others had just been playing a practical joke on her.

"Who's back, eh?" Mangetsu shouted back up.

"That guy! You know the one...Kaku...Kakuto?"

"IT'S KAKUBLIH, OBVIOUSLY! DON'T YOU KNOW ANYTHING WOMAN?"

"Kyouki will you for once in your life, stop wasting time and get me the hell out of here!"

"Geez you're being such a dick Zabuza!" Tatsuya said, slightly bitter that Zabuza had interrupted what would have been – in his opinion, a perfectly good argument between him and Kyouki. "Ohhhh... I get it! You really are a woman! You must be on your period!" There was a moment of silence as everyone stopped to glare at Tatsuya.

"Tatsuya, just go sit in the corner, eh." Mangetsu sighed.

"THERE ARE NO CORNERS YOU IDIOT! THIS HOLE IS CIRCULAR, SO HA!"

"Kyouki, I'll throw you up a rope!" Of course, Choujuurou meant well, but his throwing skills were beyond off, and rather than getting anywhere close to Kyouki, the rope swung backwards and whacked Tatsuya straight in the eye. "Ooops, sorry Tatsuya... but... you kind of had that coming..."

"YOU BASTARD, I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!"

"Uhh...be grateful it wasn't...Hirameki?"

"You guys!" Kyouki yelled down, trying to break up the fight "You're ninja, right? Couldn't you just... focus the chakra in your feet and climb up?"

Stupid didn't even begin to describe how the others must have felt at that point it time.

_Back At The Base_

After, their ordeal, everyone decided the mission just wasn't worth doing and all headed back to the base. The six of them sat there for some time before Kisame finally said

"Don't you feel like we're missing someone?" At that precise moment, the doors flew open and Raiga stood there looking like he was ready to scream bloody murder.

"KYOUKI!"

"Oh ...shit."

"YOU LEFT ME BEHIND WITH THAT KAKUZU GUY! HE MADE ME PAY HIM NOT TO TELL ANYONE ABOUT THE CHIL-" Raiga paused for a moment, deciding it was best not to say the last part out loud. "If you say a word about anything you heard today, I swear, I will tell everyone exactly why that man is out to get you." he muttered to Kyouki, who merely grimaced and gave him the slightest hint of a nod.

"Oh believe me Raiga, I'll take your secret to the grave..."

"Anyway" Choujuurou began, desperately trying to change the subject "What were we even supposed to be doing on that mission?"

"We were going food shopping." Zabuza stated, as if it was something completely normal for a group of excessively violent and bloodthirsty ninja to be doing.

"...we were doing what, eh?" Mangetsu asked.

"Yeah, you dicks forced me to get out of bed just for that? That's the woman's job not mine!" Tatsuya protested, ignoring the death glare he was receiving from Kyouki.

"I don't think I need to remind you of the time we tried to get to the kitchen, do I?" Zabuza asked.

Everyone recoiled in horror, that was a time they'd all rather forget...


	9. Get Back In The Kitchen!

_A/N: Why yes, we are throwing in random characters and pieces of technology that have nothing to do with anything! ...Someday, this story will have a plot of it's very own. _

"I'm hungry. Go make some food woman... in fact, why are you even out of the kitchen? GET BACK IN THE KITCHEN!" Tatsuya yelled at Kyouki, unaware of the futility of the whole thing, as after having had the same thing said to her on a daily basis, Kyouki had learned to completely switch off every time Tatsuya spoke.

"Do we even have a kitchen?" Kisame asked, looking up from his sword, which he was currently feeding fish food.

"Yeah, it's right at the back of the base, I saw it in these blueprints." Choujuurou replied, waving a piece of paper in the air whilst barely making himself heard over Tatsuya's continued ranting.

"There are blueprints?" Kyouki asked, her eyes wide with shock, "Jesus, I thought someone just built this place on a drunken whim..."

"We could always use the blueprints to get to the kitchen, eh..."

"I have an idea! We should use those blueprints to find the kitchen, there might be food that the woman can cook!" Tatsuya said, blatantly ignoring the fact that Mangetsu had made almost the exact same statement only seconds before him.

"And there are a lot of other rooms here too..." Choujuurou muttered whilst staring at the blueprints.

"I'll go get Zabuza and Raiga..." Kyouki said, walking away from Tatsuya who, after giving up on his endeavours to get her back in the kitchen, was now rambling on about the 'sheer brilliance' of his 'plan'.

_**10 Minutes Later**_

"Kisame, why do we need survival bags and first aid kits? It's not like we're climbing a mountain or anything..." Zabuza asked, horrified at the thought of having to do some actual exercise.

"Yeah, but we'll need them in case we get lost" Kisame replied "this base is pretty big, and none of the seven of us have ever gone past the wall of trash before..."

"But we have a map and we're only exploring the base, even if it is big it's still just a building."

"Whatever Choujuurou. If you get lost, killed or molested on this trip I just want you to know, I'm not helping you."

After half an hour of climbing over the wall of trash, the seven swordsmen finally reached the other side of the heap, and due to the complete lack of sunlight that got through, were left in almost complete darkness...with Raiga.

"So...where do we go now?" he asked.

"Well..." Choujuurou squinted at the blueprints, his eyesight being even worse in the dark than it was on a regular day, which was barely possible."We go through that door on the right, then we keep going straight until we get to a fork..."

"Wait, let me look at the map, eh" Mangetsu said, after looking around for several minutes and seeing no door to the right.

"Then we go down that corridor for about ten minutes..." Choujuurou continued, still tracing his finger along the blueprints whilst completely ignoring Mangetsu.

"Ten minutes? How big is this place?" Kyouki asked.

"Well supposedly it's about five miles across... the Mizukage thought that a building this big would be best for keeping us away from the other villagers. Partly because we're retarded, but mostly because she's a bitch." Zabuza shrugged.

"And you know why that is? It's because-"

"She's a woman. "

"WILL YOU QUIT IGNORING ME, EH!" Mangetsu yelled, becoming extremely frustrated with the other members, and when they still paid no mind to his little outburst, he resolved to grab the blueprints straight out of Choujuurou's hands and run through the nearest door. Unfortunately, no one noticed for another five minutes, when they had already reached the end of the corridor.

"Where's Mangetsu?" Raiga asked.

"He'll be off sulking somewhere," Kyouki shrugged, "he does that a lot, it's best just to leave him be."

"... where did the map go?" Choujuurou said, staring down at his – now empty, hands.

"You lost the map? You are such an idiot chicken chow mein." Tatsuya said, smacking Choujuurou upside the head.

"It's not my fault! Mangetsu must have been the one who took it... he could be anywhere by now."

"Okay...we're not going to get anywhere if we just stand around" Kisame sighed, rubbing his temples. Sometimes, he wondered if all his insecurity and general unhappiness, stemmed not from his appearance, but from the fact that he was surrounded by idiots. "Raiga, Choujuurou, you two go back down the corridor and go look for Mangetsu. Zabuza, Tatsuya, you two go through the door to the left... Kyouki and I will go right..."

"Why does this whole situation feel awkwardly like a Scooby Doo episode?" Zabuza muttered to Kyouki as Raiga and Choujuurou disappeared back down the corridor, whilst Tatsuya busied himself yelling at Kisame, over how he had no right to order the others around... that was Tatsuya's job.

"Because the collective IQ of everyone here is that of an eight year old? Just, get on with it..." she shrugged in response, turning to leave with Kisame – thankful that she wasn't the one who had been landed with Tatsuya.

Some time later, everyone else had at least made some attempt to get to their respective destinations, even if some people, such as Raiga, had become..._distracted_. Zabuza and Tatsuya, being as lazy as they were had made absolutely no attempt to move since the group had split up. In fact, they had just stood in the exact same place, leaning against the wall and waiting until the others were out of earshot.

"So..." Zabuza said, turning to Tatsuya, even beneath the bandages it was easy to see that he now had a somewhat psychotic smile on his face "I bet Kisame and Kyouki have gone off to 'find some gills'"

"Yeah, and to find some er... lungs as well!...haha..." Tatsuya replied, trying to pass off his sentence with enough confidence to make it seem as though he knew what Zabuza was talking about, just so he could feel included.

"...You have no idea what I'm talking about do you?" Zabuza narrowed his eyes, it didn't take much for him – or anyone else for that matter, to see through Tatsuya's façade.

"Of course I know! But say... Frank here" Tatsuya said, gesturing to an empty space on his left "didn't know...what would you say to him?"

"Well, er.. Frank" Zabuza said, looking to Tatsuya's left "on Kisame's birthday I walked in to..."

"What are you doing Zabuza the Dick?" Tatsuya asked with a confused expression plastered across his face.

"...I'm talking to Frank."

"...What? Who's Frank? What the hell are you on?"

"Nevermind... _crazy bitch_...anyway, I walked in to see Kyouki and Kisame alone, and Kisame was taking his shirt of. And she tries so say that he was looking for his gills, but Kyouki's a pirate and therefore a liar, so I don't believe that for a second."

"Kyouki's a pirate...?" Tatsuya asked, convinced that even through his veil of insanity he'd have noticed if one of his co-workers was a pirate.

"...That may have been a dream I had."

"I see... so that's why she refused to do as I said and marry that guy from SeaWorld... she's in love with Kisame... I bet I could marry her off really easily now..."

"...You really do have some issues, Tatsuya."

_**Meanwhile**_

"Ten minutes and we still haven't found anything... maybe we should try opening some of these doors..." Kisame said, after he and Kyouki had reached yet another dead end.

"Why are we even looking for the kitchen?" Kyouki asked, with a highly displeased tone to her voice, "it's not like we weren't coping without it."

"I know, but it's not like we had anything better to do..."

"Uhh...Kisame..." Kyouki said, after having flung a nearby door open, only to have someone fall on top of her.

"What?" he asked, continuing to look through the various doors in front of him, without even so much as glancing back.

"There's a dead guy in this cupboard." She replied, moving slightly to the left so that she was no longer propping up a dead body.

"Oh yeah, _him_..." Kisame nodded and rolled his eyes when he looked back. "He disappeared about a year or so ago... I always wondered where he went..."

"I thought you said no one had ever gone past the heap of rubbish?"

"I said none of the seven of us... this guy was around when we were the _eight_ swordsmen of the hidden mist." Kisame replied, seeming not at all bothered that the decaying corpse of his former comrade had just fallen out of a cupboard.

"Remind me again why I agreed to work with you guys..."

"Because Mangetsu and you have some weird overly attached friendship..._thing_?"

At first, Kyouki wasn't sure whether she was meant to respond to Kisame, or just stand there glaring at him. Although Kisame wasn't the first and certainly not the last person to point that out to her, it really wasn't something she was prepared to discuss. "...can we just get this over with?" she mumbled eventually, after spending several minutes trying to use her eyes to bore holes into Kisame's soul.

However, before the two of them could actually do anything else, they were interrupted by a loud crash, coming from elsewhere in the building.

Zabuza and Tatsuya fell to the floor, as a car broke through the wall. The driver's window rolled down, and a seemingly albino man with violet eyes stuck his head out of it.

"WHICH IDIOT PUT A FUCKING BUILDING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD?" he shouted, before continuing to reverse through the building, obviously not aware of how to make his car go in the right direction.

Fortunately however, the path of destruction had left all of the seven swordsmen visible to each other.

"Screw it. This is the last time any one of us leaves the living room." Kisame shook his head, giving up on looking for the kitchen and heading back to the living room where he had left his precious Samehada.

And not only is that why the seven swordsmen are confined to one area of the building, it is also why, under no circumstances, will Hidan _ever _be allowed to have his driver's licence back.


	10. Gambling Addictions

"How much will you take for this small boy, eh?" After upwards of four hours in a casino, Mangetsu and Kyouki had successfully managed to bet (and lose) all of the money the organization had and, because they weren't willing to just stop and admit they had a problem... were now trying to swap Choujuurou for more money.

"Uhhh...about 100ryo..." The poor, unfortunate casino worker replied in a shaky, unsure voice, probably because it was the first time he'd ever had to accept an actual person as payment.

"Okay, that's fine." Kyouki promptly took the (extremely small) amount of money out of his hand, half-expecting him to realize just how worthless Choujuurou was and change his mind.

"Haha, jokes on you... we would have taken 10, eh!" ...because of outbursts like that.

"But I-" Choujuurou attempted to protest, although by now, he should have known better than to expect anyone to actually listen to (and care about) what he wants.

"Shut up Choujuurou, just get in the bag." Kyouki interrupted with a surprising lack of emotion, given that she was just agreeing to sell of one of her team mates so that she and Mangetsu would have enough money to spend on slot machines.

"Yeah, you had this coming, eh!"

"Oh...okay..." Choujuurou sighed, giving in to the demands of his so-called friends after having barely put up the slightest hint of an argument.

"...You think maybe this has gone too far now?"

"It's only Choujuurou, eh... although, I'm beginning to think maybe 100ryo isn't enough... maybe we should bet the base, eh" Mangetsu paused for a moment, attempting to weigh up the difference between betting off Choujuurou, and betting off the place that was home to his precious X-Box "...Okay, now it's gone too far, eh."

"Nah, have you seen that place? It's a shithole! There's still a massive hole in it from when that guy reversed straight through the building last week..."

"Well then I guess it doesn't matter, eh...but the base won't fit in a slot machine... WE SHOULD BET IT ON ROULETTE! Seriously, it's impossible to lose, eh."

_1 Hour Later_

"You two have lost every single game so far, I doubt you even have anything left to bet..." Poor delusional Mangetsu.

"No wait... I umm found this sword" Kyouki then revealed a sword that looked suspiciously more like Zabuza's executioner blade than anything else. "...Can we bet this?"

"Isn't that Zabu-OW...What was that about, eh?" Mangetsu turned to Kyouki who, after having just kicked him in the shin, was now looking at him as though she was going to grab him by the throat and strangle him at any given moment. "Yeah... we'll bet it on 31 Black, eh!"

"23 Red."

"GOD DAMN IT, EH!...Well if we're on a losing streak...Let's bet my brother!...and Tatsuya, eh"

"Yeah... we didn't bring them with us but we'll write you an I.O.U"

"Fine."

"Yes! 16 Red, eh!"

"16 Red."

"WHAT(,eh)?" The two of them yelled in near-perfect unison, the first time they managed to win that night was the one time they were hoping to lose.

_**A Few Minutes Later**_

"Can we bet them again...please?" Kyouki asked after several (painfully) successful attempts at betting off Tatsuya and Suigetsu.

"No."

"Then... if we really have nothing else left then I'll bet... my Canadian accent, eh!"

"What? If you're going to do that then I'll bet..." she paused for a moment trying to think of something she owned that wasn't just complete and utter garbage "...my parents?"

"YOU HAVE LIVING PARENTS? YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE A NARUTO CHARACTER, EH!"

"...You have parents too Mangetsu."

"Oh yeah... can we bet them instead of yours, eh? I really hate them. I mean, my dad's Swedish and he says 'da' at the end of every sentence, it's completely ridiculous, eh. And as for my mother... all she ever does is sit and eat croissants all day whilst saying ohohoh, eh!"

"...you're really racist Mangetsu..."

"Of course I am, eh!" he replied before turning back around and proceeding with his gambling. Leaving Kyouki to just shrug off his previous outburst, at least for once he said something that wasn't a Canadian stereotype.

_Several More Hours Later_

"WHAT THE HELL TOOK YOU GUYS SO LONG?... AND WHERE'S THE ONE WITH THE GLASSES... YOU KNOW... KABUTO?"

"Uhhh... Kisame, we have something to tell you... we kind of bet some things we really shouldn't have..." Kyouki said, blatantly ignoring Tatsuya.

"Your first born child? HOW COULD YOU DO THAT, WOMAN? You must be devastated Kisame, she's just bet away your unborn child."

"Tatsuya. Just so you know, everyone's doing that thing where they ignore you." Raiga pointed out, honestly having believed that Tatsuya would have just stayed quiet, what a fool.

"GOD DAMN IT I HATE IT WHEN YOU GUYS DO THAT!"

"Wait...what did you two bet?" Kisame asked, struggling to hear even the sound of his own thoughts over all the background noise Tatsuya was producing.

"Ehhh... nothing much, just...all of our stuff." Kyouki replied, in the most nonchalant manner she possibly could.

"What do you mean 'all of our stuff'?"

"Well, you know... all of it. All of our stuff, all of Raiga's stuff..._especially_ all of Zabuza's stuff... we tried to bet you're stuff, but you don't have any... oh and Choujuurou."

"All of Choujuurou's stuff?"

"No, just Choujuurou."

"Did you bet all of my stuff?" Tatsuya asked, practically grabbing Kyouki by the shoulders, worried that he might just return to his room only to find all his pok_émon _missing.

"We tried, but you have a lot of crap." she shrugged in response.

"Yeah, we got about half way through it all...we definitely bet your charizard though!" Mangetsu added in, if only for the joy of causing Tatsuya pain.

"NOOOOOO!- Wait, what the hell is wrong with your accent Mangetsueh?" However, before Tatsuya received a proper answer, Mangetsu collapsed to the floor, clutching his chest in pain.

"Oh god. I think I'm dying."

"Why, what's wrong Mangetsu?" Kyouki asked, with a strange lack of emotion in her voice, given the situation.

"My accent... it was the source of my strength... I don't think... I'll survive much longer without it!"

"Oh for the love of god. Kyouki, you stay here with Mangetsu, the rest of us will go and get his accent back."

"What about Zabuza the dick?" Tatsuya asked after looking around for a moment and seeing he was nowhere to be found.

"Just leave him..." Raiga waved his hand dismissively, as he emerged from the shadowy corner he seemed to almost eternally be in "if he wakes up only to have us tell him you bet away all his stuff, he will kill you...Also, he spends half his life sleeping... if he's going to be that lazy then he doesn't deserve any screen time!"

"Jealous, much?"

"SHUT UP!"

It was several hours before the remaining three swordsmen managed to recover the majority of what Mangetsu and Kyouki had bet away, yet after having killed several employees in order to find him there was still no sign of Choujuurou. They may have also killed several innocent by-standers, but that had nothing to do with finding any of their lost goods, it was more for the purposes of Kisame's amusement.

"You know... if they managed to sell Choujuurou there might be other little boys here that've been accepted as payment. Maybe we should ...er... _save _them." Raiga desperately tried to cover up what he was actually thinking, although by now, absolutely everyone – not only in the organization, but in the entirety of the Hidden Mist village knew he was a complete paedophile.

"Raiga, I assure you, if there are any here they'd probably be safer here than with you." Kisame looked at Raiga with a worried expression, seriously considering committing the man to an insane asylum...

"YOU GUYS... I found my Charizard... we could use it to burn this place!"

"and why would we use your imaginary friend to burn this place to the ground?" Raiga sighed, sometimes he thought he was the only person in the whole organization who didn't even try to encourage Tatsuya's delusions.

"Well, realistically we don't want to have to get all this stuff back only to have Mangetsu and the woman bet it all away again, so it probably would be best if we just burnt this place down..." Tatsuya replied, making an uncharacteristic amount of sense.

"I swear, the next time they even so much as go within 3ft of a slot machine I'm sending them to a GA meeting."

_Back At The Base_

And so, after several hours of searching through many mountains of crap at the casino – never once coming across Mangetsu's accent – Tatsuya, Raiga and Kisame finally arrived back at the base. Now, if they were being honest with themselves...they were hoping that they would find Mangetsu dying a slow painful death for all the trouble he (partially) caused. However, rather than finding that, they instead found him in perfect health, playing COD on his X-Box, as he does every single day of his life.

"...Why aren't you dying Mangetsu?" Kisame asked.

"Oh... you actually believed that crap about my accent, eh? As if I could actually bet it on something...I'M CANADIAN THROUGH AND THROUGH, EH!"

"You know what, Mangetsu? ... I really hate you." from that moment Kisame swore that if he ever made himself a hitlist, Mangetsu would be at the very top.

"Well, I'm just glad I got those pictures of my..._nephews_... back!" Raiga said, trying to lighten the mood, although – since it's him – it didn't really work.

"Well they do say everyone has a creepy uncle..." Tatsuya shuddered slightly at the thought of anyone being related to Raiga.

"Where's Choujuurou?... I thought you were going to bring him back too..." Kyouki wasn't asking out of interest or care for Choujuurou, it was more that – for once in her life – she was thinking the exact same thing as Tatsuya, and _anything _was better than that.

"Crap. I knew there was something we forgot... I wonder if he managed to escape himself or if he was still in the building when we burnt it down...hmm." However, Kisame's thoughts were cut short when he was interrupted by Zabuza.

"Alas, earwax!"

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT ZABUZA THE DICK?"

"I was having a dream... actually it was more like a nightmare, I was this old wizardy man and I was stealing some boy's jellybeans but when I ate them they tasted like earwax... IT WAS DISGUSTING!"

"I TOLD YOU HE DIDN'T DESERVE ANY SCREENTIME!"


	11. Innit Blud

_A/N: I choose you, generic horny pervert! The following story is not recommended for fans of N-Dubz... or anything else for that matter. Also, this link may or may not be helpful: ./music/2010/jan/15/ndubz-dappy-death-threats ... only time will tell._

_

* * *

_

It was another dreary...grey day in the Mist Village. As per usual everyone was going about with their daily bloodshed and carnage and the seven swordsmen... were doing absolutely nothing.

"Hello son!" or at least, the moment the doors flung open, that's exactly what Kisame wished they were doing.

"Oh god! Mum promised me you were gone!" His eyes widened, all the seaworld jokes in the world would never prepare his team mates for what his family were actually like.

"Well your mother's a liar and a whore!"

"Wh-what? My mother's a saint."

"Yes...but that's not the point."

"What was the point? Why are you even here?"

"I...wanted to catch up...? and I needed a place to stay." his dad replied, desperately trying to prevent his son from realising the first part was a complete lie.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Kisame, have you seen my sword?" a still half asleep Zabuza asked, stumbling into the room without paying attention to his surroundings. "I need it to make a sandwich. I think I was using it to prop up a table or something... I dunno."

"Hello gorgeous" Kisame's dad began, with a rather terrifying smile. "You know, I'm an astronaut, and my next mission is to Uranus."

"I'M NOT GAY! Why would you even think that? I don't even know who you are and you just come in here _assuming _that I'm gay... how very dare you."

"That's exactly why you can't stay here." Kisame groaned, it hadn't even been 10 minutes yet and he was already wishing that his dad would just leave.

"Why? Because that man's gay?"

"No, because you're a creepy old man. You'll creep everybody out!"

"ZABUZA WHAT THE FUCK? I woke up this morning, couldn't see out of one eye and then I looked in the mirror. Fuck you!" Of course, the instant Kyouki burst into the room, Zabuza had immediately fallen to the floor in hysterical laughter. However, it took Kisame at least 5 minutes to realize she was actually referring to the crude, plastic eyepatch, superglued to her face.

"So... you're a young pirate? Well, did you know that _I_...am the King of the pirates." it was said with so much grandeur and such an inflated sense of self-worth that the statement was obviously supposed to be impressive... however, such things are lost on someone who has an ego so big it can barely fit in the village.

"...THE FUCK YOU ARE! I'M THE KING OF THE PIRATES!"

"Don't be ridiculous woman, you can't be a King, you're a woman. But don't worry, you could be a princess, especially since you're marrying Kisame and he's the prince of the pirates!... although that might count as a career and you'll have to give that up as soon as your baby comes." Tatsuya said, in his usual habit of appearing out of thin air just so he could be annoying.

"What? You're marrying this girl? She's already pregnant?...why didn't you invite me to your wedding? These are the things you're supposed to tell your dad!" However, the only response he received from his son, was the loud smack of Kisame's head hitting the table... god only knows how many times he had already done that today.

"..."

"It's true, he is a terrible son." Tatsuya took it upon himself to reply in this situation, since everyone else was clearly in far too much despair. "He didn't even tell us you were coming! But you know, now that you're here you might as well stay a few nights!"

"I don't like where this is going...Zabuza, let's go see Ao!" Kyouki said, practically dragging Zabuza out of the room – by the neck – and slamming the door behind them.

"So... is it because he's gay that you feel comfortable letting her go alone with him?"

"...I don't care who she goes with." Kisame grumbled, not quite finding the energy to lift his head from where he slammed it into the table.

"Ah, so it's an open relationship, you don't care who she sleeps with dot dot dot"

"You know what, I do care. _You_ stay away." he raised his head just enough to give his father and exasperated look. God damn Tatsuya for inviting him to stay.

"I KNEW IT! You do love her! Are you going to set a date now? Actually, I'll do it, I'll plan everything, I love weddings! Except my wedding...I'm never getting married... unless Danzo asks."

"Sure Tatsuya, whatever." Kisame replied, not really willing to question if it was Danzo the wrinkly old man from the Leaf Village, Tatsuya was talking about.

"Ok, great. I'll start right away."

_Elsewhere_

"Open your fucking door right now, Ao!" Kyouki yelled, after having nearly knocked Ao's door completely off its hinges simply because he refused to open it quick enough for her liking.

"Oh my god, he looks just like you!"

"Zabuza... that's the door."

"Oh my god, he looks just like you." he said again, much to his relief the door was actually open this time.

"We look nothing alike Zabuza." Kyouki sighed, beginning to seriously doubt Zabuza's vision... probably with good reason. "...except for the eyepatch."

"You know, even with that you still don't look like much of a pirate." he remarked, contemplating buying a parrot and a wooden leg for his next 'practical joke'.

"SHUT UP."

"Say Zabuza, you're a strong confident man, aren't you? We should go for coffee sometime." Although, in English, people would probably just say hello...Ao was a strange man, one look at him was enough to tell you that.

"...Why did you bring me here? I'm sorry, ok? It'll come off in a couple of days..." Zabuza fell into a sudden panic. Clearly, he was one of those people who had never seen Ao before.

"No, I don't think that's good enough..." Kyouki mumbled in reply. "Ao, Zabuza would _love _to go for coffee with you. What time?"

"Oh about 5-ish, I know a really _cozy _place."

"Oh god no, anything but this...I'm sorry, I'll never do it again!"

"And you know what else? Zabuza would probably love to come round yours afterwards... if you know what I mean..." she continued, smirking to herself.

"OH GOD NO! Really, I'll do anything you want... for a week!"

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Bye Ao!"

_Back At The Base_

"Hello everyone~"

"You thought I was creepy? This lovely young man here is very creepy."

"You just called Raiga lovely...get out!" Sadly for Kisame, his attempts to make his Dad leave were still a complete failure.

"I'm a very lovely man."

"...what?" Kisame wondered if it may have just been something wrong with him, but for some reason, all his team mates seemed more ridiculous than usual today...

"Hey you guys! How's your day been?" Choujuurou said, attempting to be polite... what an _idiot._

"What the hell is that? Look at it's face, it's disgusting!" Kisame's dad grimaced, for once finding something he really wouldn't tap.

"Oh that Choujuurou... he's kind of like a dog... a dog we love to kick." Kyouki said, returning to the base, a very sullen looking Zabuza stood right behind her.

"How did you guys get back so quickly?" Kisame asked, probably wishing that they had taken... several hours longer.

"...Ao lives next door."

"Don't. Even mention. His name." Zabuza choked out, sounding as if he was about to break down and cry at any given moment.

"Who, Ao? Ao next door? That Ao?"

"Shut up, Kyouki!"

"So... Kyouki is it? I haven't got a bed tonight... can I share yours?"

"No, but I'm sure Zabuza will let you share his..."

"No."

"Zabuza, you promised me. You swore. In blood. Out side this door. I stabbed you in the wrist... YOU'RE STILL BLEEDING!"

"Please...no... I'm not gay, I promise"

"You'll have to admit it one day Zabuza, why not now?" Kyouki said, in as derisive a manner as she could manage.

"...I'm leaving."

"Oooh, he's taking a hissy fit." Raiga added, in an equally derisive tone.

"I HATE YOU ALL!"

"Soooo, it's just the two of us now?"

"Uhhh no it's not, Raiga, Kisame and Choujuurou are still here."

"...and? I'm sure they won't mind."

"Yes we will!" Choujuurou said, his young mind not prepared to deal with issues like these.

"I finished planning your wedding!" Tatsuya burst into the room, carrying with him several million sheets of paper... one of which looked more like a child's drawing of an oak tree than anything else.

"How did you do it so quickly?" Kisame asked, slightly taken aback that Tatsuya had taken him seriously.

"Well to be honest, I've been planning this for ages."

"Whose wedding is it?" Kyouki asked, only to receive an extremely murderous glance from Tatsuya.

"...YOUR WEDDDING! Are you so self-absorbed that you forgot you're marrying Kisame? I have discussed everything with you fiancé and all the details have been dealt with, the date has been set, all the invitations have been sent. You can't back out now, you're having his baby!"

"...I haven't got an invitation."

"THAT'S BECAUSE IT'S NOT REAL! He's insane okay? Absolutely bat shit crazy!"

"...I see, so you're actually available! Trying to keep her all to yourself, eh. Like father, like son!" he said, turning to Kisame, who merely twitched his eye and slammed his head against the table once more.

"Did someone just say, eh?"

"Your accent is beautiful."

"I'm leaving...eh."

"I'm not crazy, that's just mean...you're mean. Is it because you're all hormonal? I understand you know, since you're pregnant...with Kisame's baby. Because I'll kill you if it's anyone else's." Tatsuya said, in complete ignorance of the fact that the entire course of conversation in the room had just changed.

"Who else's could it possibly be?" Kisame replied, immediately grimacing when he actually heard what he said.

"Kisame, you're really not helping..."

"OBVIOUSLY, WHO ELSE'S COULD IT BE? YOU WERE IN THE ROOM AT THE TIME!" Zabuza, obviously too lazy to get up and actually go and speak to Tatsuya, yelled from wherever it was he was hiding upstairs.

"I'M TRYING TO FORGET THAT."

"FORGET IT? YOU WERE UNCONCIOUS, DIPSHIT. YOU DIDN'T EVEN KNOW ABOUT IT UNTIL I TOLD YOU. AND I'M THE ONE WHO WALKED IN ON IT ALL."

"WELL, THAT'S NOT THE POINT...ANYWAY, DO YOU WANT A SANDWICH?"

"YEAH, SURE"

"WHAT DO YOU WANT IN IT?"

"...I CAN'T BE BOTHERED THINKING ABOUT IT. THINK FOR ME."

"EGG AND HAM IT IS. WOMAN, MAKE ME AND ZABUZA A SANDWICH!"

"I can't... I'm too... pregnant..." she rolled her eyes, at least Tatsuya would take it as an actual excuse.

"Damn... Choujuurou make me and Zabuza a sandwich."

"I can't, I might drop the knife and cut off my foot, that's why my sword isn't sharp..."

"GODDAMMIT I HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING AROUND HERE!" Tatsuya yelled, flailing his arms about and storming out of the room, turning the radio on as he went.

"_And now N-Dubz here with their new song"_

"My God, you know what I hate? I hate their fans. I hate anyone who's ever listen to their music and liked it, I hate anyone who has heard their music and might like it, I hate anyone who will like them in the future, I hate anyone who knows them, I hate any of their dogs, I hate any of their cats, I hate their faces and I especially HATE N-DUBZ!"

"Calm down, Kyouki. It's just a song..."

"Choujuurou, you know what a good song would be?" She asked, Choujuurou merely shook his head in response, not willing to answer in case Kyouki turned round and punched him right in the face. "Your mum screaming in pain. But even that wouldn't make their music any good because you'd still here their shitness through it!"

"You say that now, but I bet you wouldn't say it to their faces..." Tatsuya said, returning to the room after failing to make a sandwich.

"Where's the phone? Someone find me the goddamn phone. Choujuurou, go get the phone and tell me the number." She paused for all of three seconds before deciding that Choujuurou just wasn't moving fast enough for her liking "WHY ISN'T THE PHONE IN MY HAND YET CHOUJUUROU?"

"Choujuurou, I'd seriously hurry up if I were you..."

"Took your fucking time. Now..." she said, grabbing the phone from Choujuurou's hand "YOU GUYS FUCKING SUCK, YOUR MUSIC IS SHIT. I HATE YOU!... now I feel slightly better."

_1 Hour Later_

"Uhh Kyouki... you've got a text, eh." Mangetsu said, waving the phone in the air, after having finally decided it was safe enough to return to the lounge.

"Oh? Can you read it for me?"

"It says..." He paused for a moment, after realizing what it said he was unwilling to read out the actual contents of the message "your complaints have been noted but your comment...was very mean, eh."

"Give it here, Mangetsu." Kisame sighed, grabbing the phone from the pseudo-Canadian "What it actually says is... well, I can't read it word for word, this man's spelling is terrible. No wonder you hate him, he's an idiot! I think it says that he hate you and is going to kill you, but don't quote me on that, I might be wrong."

"Oh, he wants a fight does he? I'll give him a goddamn fight! Where's my sword? I actually want to use it this time!"

"You seem awfully grumpy today, did you get up on the wrong side of bed?... did she son?"

"We are not. Sleeping together."

"Oh so it was just a one night stand?"

"...I hate my family."

_Several Hours later, Half-way around the world_

"N-dubz, where are they? Find them!" God only knows how the seven swordsmen had managed to travel half way around the world, especially since they all insisted on carrying weapons with them. However, 32 countries and 400 random people pulled over in the street, and Kyouki and Raiga were still no closer to finding N-Dubz.

"Je ne sais pas."

"THIS MAN IS SPEAKING GIBBERISH!" Kyouki yelled, releasing the death grip she had on the collar of the man's shirt.

"No, no, no Kyouki. It's just French." Raiga pointed out. "Où sont N-Dubz?... This man is looking at me funny... I think we should go. Erosame might have raped everyone by now."

"...Erosame?"

"Kisame's dad."

"Oh... well that's not important. We only have one damn country left to visit."

"Which is?" Raiga sighed, slightly disappointed that they had visited all these countries and no one had ever given him the time to go and look for...foreign children, although deep down inside he knew exactly why that was.

"England."

_Some hours later_

"Where are we exactly?"

"Hull, I think..." Choujuurou replied, though all he really knew was that wherever they were, it was an absolutely disgusting place.

"Oh, so that's why it's a complete shit hole." Zabuza said, as if the answer had been obvious all along.

"Look at that girl, you can practically see her uterus! She would be way too easy, I prefer a bit of a challenge, which is why I won't give up on you!"

"Can we please just kill N-Dubz and go?" Kyouki's eye twitched, really the last thing she needed today was someone else to add to her ever increasing hit list.

"Yes, we should try and get back as quickly as possible, so you and I can get better acquainted."

"How are you so creepy? What kind of childhood did you have?"

"I'm just seeking comfort, my mother never hugged me enough... perhaps you could help with that."

"My mum never hugged me either..." Choujuurou said, missing the entire point of Erosame's statement and attempting to offer some sympathy.

"I'm not surprised, you're sickening. Get away from me."

"I remember when my mum was killed...good times." Tatsuya muttered, more to himself than anyone else...although the others better have been listening to him, if they hadn't he'd give them a rant so long by the time he'd finished they'd all be dead... even Raiga...

"You know, I might stay for a while. I could get to know all of you a lot better... except the glasses one and my son, incest is a bit too far."

"This man is going to out creep me... apart from Choujuurou which one of you is the youngest?... Kyouki, come here! I need to sleep with you!" Raiga said, panicking over how in just one day his entire claim to fame could be stolen from him.

"What, no! Why the hell is it always me? He said incest was a bit too far, go do that!"

"I don't have any family. I evolved from a 9000 year old mushroom. Now get your ass over here!"

"Raiga, shut up." Kisame swore that by the end of the day he was going to kill every single one of them, and he really wasn't going to regret it.

"Oh, getting defensive are we? Defending your woman's honour? That is so like you, deny you guys have a relationship but then whenever someone comes near her you go COMPLETELY insane. You must really be in love with her, I bet you can't wait for-" Unfortunately for Tatsuya he never got to finish his rant. As he was sadly interrupted for a short chavvy man, who we now know to be Dappy.

"Yo bluds. You lucky peoples want to come to me concert, yeah. Well I is gonna-"

"Oh my god, you're really short!" Having had to bite her lip ever since he started talking, Kyouki decided that the only way to prevent herself from bursting into hysterical laughter at the man, simply, because he was a midget. "Even Choujuurou's taller than you... go stand next to Kisame, it'll amuse me."

"Frank...Frank...Frank..." after receiving no response from his shaky, low whisper, Tatsuya immediately attempted to get someone else's attention "...Zabuza."

"What?"

"...He interrupted me."

"I don't care." Zabuza rolled his eyes, uninterested in both Tatsuya's constant whining and whatever crap Dappy was talking.

"BUT HE INTERRUPTED ME! Where's my stick, I'll get him!"

"You left it behind Tatsuya, it's the only thing propping up your ceiling. And it's a sword, not a stick."

"Really?"

"Innit blud."

"What? Repeat that in English, eh."

"When did you get here, Mangetsu?" Kisame asked, he could have sworn that Mangetsu died earlier on that day... or something like that.

"...I've been here all along, eh."

"Innit though blud." Dappy said, not quite realising that what he just said made absolutely no more sense than his previous 'innit blud'.

"Do you even know what blood is? Look this is blood." She said, grabbing Zabuza by his – still bleeding – wrist "It's red and sticky... I like the colour red, I might just paint the walls with you... JESUS CHRIST ZABUZA, WHAT ARE YOU, A HAEMOPHILIAC?"

"Does insanity run in your family?" Raiga asked, up until now he along with most other people had had the impression that Kyouki was somewhat calm, how wrong they were...

"A lot of things run in our family." Kyouki shrugged, not even bothering to turn round.

"Not my incredible high cheek bones."

"Yes they do, I have them too." she sighed, releasing Zabuza's wrist and turning round just so she could point them out to Tatsuya.

"Then I'll cut them off."

"...Tatsuya, just go stand in the corner."

Now, we shan't go into too much detail about what happened after this, because N-Dubz are quite frankly sickening and listening to any more of their oh-so-wonderful speeches may cause your IQ to plummet dramatically. Let's just say, that as per usual Dappy failed to engage his brain when he spoke, leaving the entirety of Hull painted an interesting shade of crimson.

_The Next Day_

"You know what? I really like it here. I might stay forever because you know, I really like you all in your own special way...except from... Choujuurou? Because you." Erosame pointed to Zabuza "Are blatantly gay. Your accent is lovely, Mangetsu. You Tatsuya... you're a bit of a character." he then looked at Raiga "You're a... refined gentleman? And you, Kyouki. You're rather fiesty, it's no wonder my son's lying to keep you all to himself."

"LEAVE ME AND MY HORRIBLE PERSONALITY ALONE!"

"You know, this reminds me of another rant..." Tatsuya said, glaring daggers at Kyouki.

_15 Years Previously_

"You know what? Because you're my cousin, I'm going to look out for you, because that's what family does." A 9-year old Tatsuya said to the 2-year old Kyouki, who could barely contemplate where she was, let alone what he was saying to her. "I shall help you whenever you need me and I'll teach you things that'll help you later on in life. I'll give you your first life lesson right now!"

_2 Hours Later_

"...so when you start school go in standing tall, the first impression you give is the most important and as a ninja you must never show any sort of fear, even if it's just being nervous...WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU GOING? Right...JUST FOR THAT I'LL START ALL OVER AGAIN!"


	12. How Not To Spend Your Birthday

_A/N: About 3/4s of this story is garbled nonsense, written in a rush so it would be out for Zabuza's birthday or at least, it's the reason why lots of pointless crap that's never mentioned again, ever shows up in this chapter... mind you, 4 months on and that's no longer an excuse any more? Like anything written about Zabuza in these stories, it's best not to read it if you're a big fan of Twilight and are easily offended by the bashing of it... or if you value your opinion of any character featured in this stories. If neither of those two points apply to you, then of course, feel free to carry on (at your own risk).  
_

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"Happy birthday Zabu-" Choujuurou's gleeful well wishing was promptly cut short when Zabuza firmly planted his foot in the younger boy's face."

"Shut up you little dick." he muttered, casually stepping over the – now unconscious – mass on the floor... formerly known as Choujuurou.

"There's nothing shameful about getting old, Zabuza." Raiga stated, assuming that Zabuza hadn't just kicked Choujuurou in the face for the hell of it... although that was becoming an increasingly popular hobby amongst the seven swordsmen.

"Yeah... how old are you Raiga?" Kyouki asked.

"Forty."

"And how long have you been forty?"

"A while."

"...please tell me you two did not just do the Twilight thing?" You'd have thought that his birthday would be the one day a year when Zabuza's 'friends' should have felt obligated to be nice to him, but instead they still took it upon themselves to bring back some of his most disturbing memories.

"Yes, yes we did. I thought all you teenage girls loved Twilight... I dunno I lose interest after they turn 16." Raiga shrugged.

"OI PEDO MAN!" Tatsuya yelled, appearing from absolutely no where in particular, as per usual. "JUST BECAUSE ZABUZA THE DICK IS GAY, IT DOES NOT MAKE HIM A WOMAN! I MEAN, I'M GAYER THAN THEY COME AND I AM _NOTHING _LIKE _THAT_!" he pointed a finger accusingly at Kyouki, who barely even glanced up from where she was lying on the sofa.

"I AM NOT GAY! How can I possibly be gay? Firstly, Haku is a _girl _and unlike Raiga, I am doing the honourable thing and not being a pediafile, I am just keeping _her_ around until _she _is of age! Secondly, my porn collection, explain."

"We all know what that collection involves, it does not make you straight."

"...NONE OF YOU HAVE ANY PROOF THAT I'M GAY! I've had more girlfriends than everyone in this building put together! Even ask _that_." he gestured towards Kyouki, who was still completely indifferent to the fact that no one seemed to remember her name.

"Zabuza, what's a pediafile?" Raiga asked, by now he was so well adjusted to the others calling him a pedofile that anything other than that just outright confused him.

"More...to the point, WHY AREN'T YOU DENYING THIS WOMAN?"

"...I wasn't listening."

"Did you and Zabuza the dick used to have a relationship?"

"Yes."

"WHAT DOES KISA-"

"However. If I remember rightly, we broke up because I never listened to his feelings and never put my heart and soul into telling him he wasn't fat whenever he bitched about it."

"HEY! The fat thing may be true but, feelings? That's just a lie." Zabuza was completely ignoring the fact that Tatsuya was now stood there, shivering with rage.

"Whatever. Either way, I was the man of the relationship..._gay_..." she said before turning away from the others in order to start using Mangetsu as her personal foot rest again.

"I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU! NOT ONLY DO YOU INTERRUPT ME _SEVERAL TIMES _BUT YOU ADMIT YOU WENT OUT WITH ZABUZA THE DICK. YOU ARE SUCH A SLUT! I BET YOU NEVER EVEN TOLD KISAME ABOUT THIS, HE'LL BE SO DISAPPOINTED WHEN HE FINDS OUT YOU'VE BEEN... WHORING YOURSELF OUT!"

"Hilarious as it is Tatsuya, I don't care..."

"fine FINE. I know when I'm not wanted!"

"No you don't... that's part of the reason we all hate you so much, eh." and so, completely ignoring Mangetsu's comments, Tatsuya stormed out of the room. Sulking like a two year old and muttering to himself... and even then he was still interrupted.

"Oh for fu-CHOUJUUROU, DOOR..." He stood silent for a few seconds, before deciding Choujuurou really wasn't moving quickly enough for his liking "CHOUJU-" and then, he remembered how Choujuurou had already been rendered unconcious today... and how much he was still in a mood with everyone else. "Jesus, I have to do _everything _around here... who are you?" he asked, being confronted by an unfamiliar boy with long black hair and dark skin.

"That's not important, is Zabuza Momochi here?" the boy asked, much to Tatsuya's chagrin.

"...Yes, Zabuza the dick is here." he replied in a tone of voice as blank as his face.

"...will you go get him for me?"

"NO! I DON'T WANT ANY OF WHATEVER IT IS YOU'RE SELLING!" Tatsuya yelled, slamming the door in the boy's face "...god damn those girl scouts..."

It was at least 10 minutes after Tatsuya wandered off, muttering to himself about girl scouts and cookies, that the young boy decided the only way he'd ever have a snowball's chance in hell of finding Zabuza, would be through going in and looking for him himself. Which, due to the state of the base... really was good way to get yourself helplessly lost. However, in spite of this, he managed to find his way to the lounge with astounding quickness...kind of like a dog.

"Choujuurou, take that ridiculous wig off, eh!"

"I'm not...Choujuurou...?"

"Oh... well you look about the same age as him, eh."

"Twelve?" Kyouki arched an eyebrow at Mangetsu, under 16s in the base were about as good an idea as trying to microwave your own face.

"...I'll go keep Raiga at bay, eh..." he said reluctantly, parting with his x-box and being forced to speak to Raiga, all in the same 10 minutes was indeed a very emotional thing for Mangetsu.

"Umm... my name's Jacob Black... I was looking for Zabuza Momochi..."

"What the hell do you want?" Zabuza asked, giving Jacob a bored, albeit extremely threatening look. He swore if one more person sang 'Happy Birthday', 'Cheer Up Charlie' or 'Gay bar' to him today, he's shove his sword so far up their ass that they'd never be able to bend over again. (now now, no taking this the wrong way.)

"I brought you Edward..." he said, handing Zabuza a slushie cup full of a strange... glittery liquid.

"Get the hell out of my sight you sickening fucker."

"No you don't understand, I hated him too!...come with me" Before Zabuza even had time to think of a response, Jacob had grabbed him by the wrist and was in the process of using all his force to drag the poor man straight out of the building.

"Ohhh, Zabuza leaving with a man... _how unusual_." Kisame said with heavy sarcasm, if Zabuza was going to be kidnapped, someone had to make fun of his sexuality one last time.

"I'M NOT GAY!" came the muffled reply from somewhere far down the corridor.

"Kisame... is Zabuza about to get raped in the butt by a big gay werewolf?" Kyouki asked, having only just registered what was actually going on.

"Knowing his luck? Probably in the face."

"...Should we go save him?"

"No, we'll just pretend to care when he bitches about it later..."

_Elsewhere_

"Where the hell have you brought me?" Out of sheer laziness, Zabuza had allowed Jacob to drag him off into some strage, unknown territory, and was only just begining to realize that this would have been widely regarded as a very bad idea.

"La Push."

"Did you just call me 'la poof'?" Zabuza reached for his sword, really not willing to take any more crap about his sexuality that day, however much to his eternal disappointment, he had left it on the bathroom floor... god only knows why.

"Really Bella? You'd think you hadn't been here a million times before." Jacob chuckled, causing Zabuza's face to contort into an expression that could barely be described by human words... so for description's sake we'll just say FFFFFFFFUUUUU.

"Why the hell... do you people keep calling me Bella?"

"Because you're her replacement." Jacob sighed "Last Thursday, there was a horrible accident, she went into a comatose state and the doctors said she was probably going to die. Fortunately, her Mary-Sue powers saved her life, but in the process turned her into some form of cat."

"WHAT?" although Zabuza was convinced people had been calling him Bella since long before last thursday, he didn't say anything, lest it prompted Jacob to talk more. Zabuza swore that boy's voice was almost as annoying as his face.

"You should also probably know that since I'm Bella's obsessive stalker and fanboy... ihavetorapeyou."

"...wait, what? No! Go rape Sparkles the ass-faced pixie!...Well technically he looks more like a shiny Easter Island statue but THAT'S NOT THE POINT!"

"I can't do that."

"Why not? He Sparkles! I don't sparkle! Look at me, I lack... luminescence!"

"Your friend kinda... dissolved him."

"Ohh that's the only thing that's stopping you is it? Hint hint." Zabuza asked, for once happy that he was the one making gay jokes... sadly, he didn't get the answer he wanted.

"Yes. Now hold still." As Zabuza was left, without his sword and therefore his only method of fighting, he was too lazy to run and frankly wasn't about to admit that he'd lose to Jacob in a fight, the outlook really wasn't good for him. That was of course, until a mysterious figure emerged from the dark and pushed Jacob off of a conveniently place cliff, to what we assume was his death. Yet even more unfortunate for Zabuza, it wasn't exactly...his ideal saviour.

"WHAT THE HELL RAIGA?"

"What... did you not want me to have his funeral?"

"Well, yes but... how did you get here?"

"Well, Zabuza. By my calculations..." Raiga said, taking a dramatic pause and gazing off into the distance like he was some sort of expert "that boy was 15 years old... do you honestly think I can't sense under-age kids out?"

"...You're a terrifying man. Why'd you kill him? If he's under 16 aren't you supposed to...you know..."

"Of course not, haven't you read the books? There's some shit about him being in love with a baby while it's still inside some bitch... he can't do that to me! I AM THE ULTIMATE PEDOFILE!... I'm also just suspicious that my calculations were in fact wrong and he is not a teenager, he is just a midget. A tiny midget."

"Right..." Zabuza never did ask just how Raiga managed to escape Mangetsu, and for a week after this incident never left his room and from then on, every August 15th made a point of going into hiding...probably with good reason.

* * *

_*I have no idea if that's the actual name of the place or not..._


	13. Just Because We're Irritating

_A/N: LonelyAura, you can take certain events in this story as a foreboding ;)_

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_

"Kyouki, Kyouki, Kyouki. KYOUKI! Shit. I've been forgetting to say eh...EH!" Mangetsu said, repeatedly poking his friend in the shoulder in an attempt to wake her up.

"...what?" she murmured in a half asleep state, hoping that whatever it was Mangetsu wanted would take no more than a few seconds and she would be able to go back to sleep.

"I want to irritate someone, eh."

"Okay..." she groaned, attempting to prop herself up against the wall. Sometimes she could have sworn she hated mornings more than Zabuza did."Who should we start with?" however, before either of them had any time to think, there came a loud screeching sound from downstairs...

"THERE'S NOTHING TO FUCKING EAT...WOMAN!"

"I sense we have our first victim, eh."

"IT'S BEEN LIKE, 3 SECONDS SINCE I YELLED AT YOU, WHY ARE YOU STILL NOT DOWNSTAIRS?" Tatsuya burst into the room, having run up the stairs as quickly as he could immediately after yelling the first time.

"Umm, Tatsuya... we have some bad news for you... you might want to sit down..." Kyouki said in as melancholic a tone as she could manage, avoiding eye contact with their unsuspecting victim.

"What? What's happened? Did one of my Digimon die? Is Charizard OK...please tell me Charizard is fine, please?"

"Your Charizard is fine, it's something much worse, now sit down, eh." to this day, it still astounded Mangetsu that a grown man still believed that pokémon was actually real.

"OH MY GOD, THE BABY ISN'T KISAME'S IS IT? YOU, YOU." he yelled, pointing and Kyouki and Mangetsu in turn "YOU'RE A SLUT AND I BET YOU SEDUCED HER, DIDN'T YOU, DIDN'T YOU? KISAME!" and with every word the volume of his, incredibly loud, voice escalated, until the walls of the room actually began to shake.

"SHUT UP!" Kisame yelled, just as loud from elsewhere in the base.

"It...isn't...that." Kyouki managed to say, despite having the near uncontrollable urge to punch Tatsuya right between the eyes.

"Oh, okay." he replied in an unusually calm tone, given that he had just screamed his lungs out at them. And finally, he managed to do as they had told him to ages ago, and sat down on the edge of Kyouki's bed.

"It...it's Danzo... he's getting a sex change, just so he can escape you, eh." Mangetsu said, finally. Since they hadn't had any time to plan this out, he had to go on what little knowledge they had about Tatsuya... his creepy old man fetish being the only thing which came to mind.

"What, no...no. Oh my god... I think I'm hyperventilating... It's okay, I'll adapt, I'll adapt." He managed to choke out through his unsteady breathing.

"Oh, and he's eloping with Ao." Kyouki added in, just to pour salt on an open wound.

"WHAT?"

"No no no, don't worry, eh. We thought about how to help you get over it, so... you know that Mei Terumi lady, eh?"

"Yeah..."

"We're marrying you off to her." strangely, Kyouki found the whole ordeal to be rather fun when it wasn't happening to her.

"NOOO. Please, I'll do anything, anything! I'll be nice I promise! You can't do this to me... I'm a homosexual, you don't lean any more to the other side than I do! Even when I was normal I was gay!" he grabbed Kyouki by the shoulders and began shaking her like a rag doll.

"No you weren't, you have that love child remember?" she replied, attempting to brush him off like you would a fly.

"I thought its mother was a man, she looked like one... I was drunk and it was a slip of the cock... mind. MIND" he continued to yell, tightening his grip on Kyouki's shoulders in a desperate attempt to reinforce his point.

"...anyway, eh." Mangetsu began, desperately trying to change the subject to avoid further mental scarring. "Danzo's a woman and we're marrying you off to Mei Terumi...Oh, hey Kisame, eh."

"Shut up, Mangetsu." Kisame said, completely pissed off at the fact he'd had to get up just to find out why Tatsuya was screaming at him for the third time that morning.

"What, eh?"

"... I really hate you, you know that? I have no idea why... I'm just really suspicious of you... you stay away from my stuff." Kisame's hatred for Mangetsu had cause him to completely forget the reason for him being there, to yell at a now suicidal Tatsuya.

"Do you even have stuff? You don't seem like the kind of person who owns stuff." Kyouki asked, trying her very best to ignore Tatsuya who was now repeatedly banging his head off her wall.

"I was in his room. When we were talking. He has. Nothing. You should know that. I bet you. Are always. In There." Tatsuya managed to say in between banging his head of Kyouki's wall, in some futile attempt to commit suicide.

"Oh for god's sake, Tatsuya stop it, it was a lie." she sighed, more out of concern for her wall than for her cousin.

"Really?"

"Yes."

"but seriously, just stay away from my stuff." Kisame said to Mangetsu, before turning and leaving.

"HE MEANS KYOUKI!" Tatsuya yelled... directly into Mangetsu's ear.

"I'm right next to you, stop shouting, eh."

"I just wanted to make a point. The point being that Kyouki is Kisame's possession and you should stay away from her."

"I gathered that, eh."

"Yeah well, some of you guys are a bit slow. I was just making it clear."

"...Let's go find someone else to annoy, eh." Mangetsu sighed, getting the feeling that if they didn't leave soon, Tatsuya would never shut up.

"Typical. Can't face up to the fact that she belongs to someone else!"

"Who should we annoy next, eh?" Mangetsu asked, after Kyouki had slammed the door on Tatsuya... not that he was particularly bothered, he'd probably spend the rest of the day sat there, ranting to himself.

"Well...we should probably stay away from Kisame. He seems to be in a mood with us today."

"...Is he ever not in a mood with us, eh?"

"Well...he's sometimes not in a mood with...me..." for the life of her she honestly couldn't remember at time when Kisame had ever been in a good mood with Mangetsu. "Let's go find Raiga."

_10 Minutes Later_

Raiga wandered into the lounge, where he was confronted with the sight of Mangetsu, sobbing into the table, and Kyouki who still looked as if she had only just woken up, sat beside him, failing to be comforting.

"What's wrong with you Mangetsu?"

"...It's...Suigetsu's dead, eh... there's this disease and it... it killed everyone under 16, eh." He managed to choke out, in between Kyouki kicking him full force in the shin, every time he didn't sound sad enough.

"...NOOO!" Raiga said after a long pause, falling to his knees and shaking his fists dramatically.

"Calm down Raiga, I mean, it's not like you're a pedofile or anything..." Kyouki said, exchanging a rather terrified look with Mangetsu.

"No, It's just... I'm mourning Suigetsu is all..."

"Yeah just... let it all out Raiga..." Kyouki rolled her eyes as her and Mangetsu were forced to sit in an awkward silence for the good part of 15 minutes, whilst Raiga sobbed uncontrollably.

"...Why won't he stop crying, eh?" Mangetsu whispered.

"I think we may have taken away everything that he holds dear to him. We're destroying people's lives today...who next?"

"Zabuza, eh!" and with that, they tried to sneak their way out of the room, leaving Raiga to cry all by himself and praying that they wouldn't end up being held responsible for his death.

_In Zabuza's Room_

"ZABUZA WAKE THE FUCK UP!" Kyouki yelled, whilst repeatedly stamping on Zabuza's stomach, having failed to wake him up in every other possible way.

"...Why?" he groaned, having barely been disturbed by all the noise (and pain) Kyouki had managed to make.

"We want to talk to you about... Haku, eh."

"HOW DO YOU KNOW ABOUT HAKU?" he suddenly sat bolt upright, knocking Kyouki completely off balance and causing her to hit the floor, full force.

"So... Haku's your _'girlfriend__'_eh?" Mangetsu asked.

"Yes... how did you know that?" there was something about this that worried Zabuza greatly.

"Haku told us." Kyouki said, standing up and straightening her clothes out... god, Zabuza's floor was not a good place to be. "So, you are gay after all then?"

"What, No? How does that make me gay?"

"Well... Haku _is _a boy... I thought you of all people would have known that, eh" Mangetsu replied, trying to look as shocked as possible.

"...NO SHE'S NOT! .Haku"

"He said you met at a gay bar..."

"O-Outside a gay bar! I WAS PASSING BY!" Zabuza yelled, becoming increasingly worried.

"Sure you were, eh..."

"And why were you two at a gay bar?"

"We were passing through Soho... on our way to see the Mizukage." Honestly, it wouldn't have surprised Kyouki (or anyone else for that matter) if the Mizukage's house was in Soho...

"Ah, Soho... I know it well."

"Yeah we thought you might."

"What? Stop twisting my words!"

"No one needed to twist them, Zabuza... you said it yourself, eh."

"I swear to god, I will beat the pair of you to death with this."

"No, no, no." Mangetsu said, grabbing Zabuza's sword from him. "Heads go in here, eh... and when you pull the sword, it's supposed to decapitate people, eh." he then handed it back to him, you'd have thought that after several years, Zabuza would at least know how to work his own weapon.

"Oh... really? I fucking love this sword, hold still!"

"Time to go...?" Kyouki gave Mangetsu a worried glance and he merely nodded and bit his lip in response, before the two of them bolted out of the room and as far away from Zabuza as was possible... not that he would have chased after them or anything, he was far too lazy for that.

"So...who is Haku, eh?" Mangetsu finally asked, after an extremely prolonged silence.

"... I haven't a fucking clue. Do we have anyone left to annoy?"

"All that's left is Choujuurou, eh..."

"That shouldn't be too difficult, all we need to do is tell him someone in the organisation likes him and-"

"Someone said they liked me?"

"Y-yes, it was... it was... Tatsuya, eh." Mangetsu stuttered out, partly because he was so shocked that someone had been in the room the whole time without them noticing... and partly because he genuinely struggled to think of someone who might like Choujuurou.

"But we don't want to interfere too much" Kyouki continued, convinced that not even Tatsuya would want Choujuurou's friendship... or anything else for that matter "you should go talk to him about it yourself..."

"Oh, okay..."

"...Does that boy seriously have no common sense?" she didn't even bother to wait until Choujuurou was out of earshot before she spoke.

"...None at all, eh."

_15 Minutes Later_

"YOU GUYS ARE SO SELFISH. WHERE THE HELL IS KISAME? KISAME GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE!" Tatsuya yelled, bursting into the lounge.

"...I'm right here Tatsuya." Kisame sighed, not willing to point out that Tatsuya was the one who had actually just dragged him downstairs.

"I am so angry at you two-"

"Why are you covered in blood, eh?" Mangetsu asked, only just realizing that Tatsuya wasn't just turning red with rage.

"Don't worry it's not mine." Tatsuya waved his hand dismissively, determined to completely avoid the subject and return to his story.

"Whose is it?" Kisame sighed, if Tatsuya had 'accidentally' killed another Jehovah's Witness he swore he wasn't going to cover it up for him... again.

"Choujuurou's. Is there a hospital near by he can crawl to? Who's the healing ninja here. Woman?" he looked expectantly at Kyouki, who merely shook her head in response. "Well then who is it?"

"You."

"Oh. Well...shit. We're going to need to find a new member... More importantly though, you guys are dicks. First of all, the woman and Kisame run away together just so they don't need to stop having sexytime and because of that this whole war starts. And then, I get killed by Mangetsu, no one apart from Kisame even seems to care that I died... thank you for avenging my death by the way, Kisame."

"I've heard this before... Tatsuya, what was my name in all of this?" Kyouki asked in a patronising albeit concerned tone

"Helen of Troy."

"Tatsuya. I am not that historical figure." she said with increasing agitation.

"And for some reason everyone kept calling me Hector..."

"I don't think there's any reasoning with-" Mangetsu began, only to be interrupted by Tatsuya kicking him in the heel as hard as he possibly could.

"TAKE THAT YOU DICK!"

"What... what are you doing, eh?" however, Mangetsu was completely unfazed by it... probably because Tatsuya couldn't kick his way out of a wet paper bag.

"Kicking you in your one weakness, Achilles! If that's even your real name!... Maybe I should shoot it with an arrow or something, like Kisame did..."

"Why did he shoot me, eh?"

"To avenge my death, after you killed me. I am his brother after all. I'm sure there was another reason though... hint hint."

"...I'll ignore that, eh." Mangetsu sighed, rolling his eyes. "Wait, why did I kill you, eh?"

"I killed Suigets-" Sadly, Tatsuya never got to finish his sentence as he was interrupted by Raiga, flinging open the doors and screaming at the top of his lungs.

"SO IT IS TRUE. HOW COULD YOU? HOW COULD YOU RELEASE A VIRUS LIKE THAT? I'LL NEVER FORGIVE YOU!"

"...Should we maybe tell Raiga it was a lie, eh?" Mangetsu whispered to Kyouki, who just continued to stare blankly at the wall in front of her.

"Mangetsu. We _might _just be responsible for Choujuurou's death. As long as everyone's distracted by Raiga... no one's going to give us shit for it."

And so, the seven swordsmen spent the rest of the day trying to prevent Raiga from brutally murdering Tatsuya... save for Choujuurou who was left to bandage up his leg because, as it turns out, Tatsuya thought that the foot was a vital organ.


	14. There's Nothing Merry About Christmas

_A/N: Hopefully, you'll all have a better Christmas than everyone in this story! As an x-mas present, we'd probably be very grateful if someone could tell us why it is we hate Choujuurou so much..._

* * *

Twas the night before Christmas, and naturally the Seven Swordsmen were spending the night in complete isolation from one another. Or at least, so they planned. Sadly, in an organisation of serial killers and psychopaths, every Christmas begins with the loud and intrusive sound of someone being beaten to death with a chair. And thus, everyone once again found themselves in the lounge.

"Raiga... what have you done?" A bleary-eyed Zabuza asked in a rather monotonous voice, struggling to keep himself from collapsing and falling asleep on the floor.

"Isn't it obvious? I've gotten rid of the competition." Raiga replied, casually rubbing his hands as if he were getting rid of dust.

"Raiga! ...You've killed Santa, eh!" Mangetsu stood there staring wide-eyed at the dead old man who lay on the floor, unable to decide if he was shocked and horrified or just plain impressed.

"Exactly. I've heard about him... sneaking into children's rooms at night, once a year. I really can't stand these '_part-time pedofiles_'" he said, as if he was mocking a twelve year old girl rather than good old Saint Nick.

"You seem to finally have accepted that you're a pedofile...?"

"Well, I've adjusted to you lot saying it the whole time... Anyway, I guess it's up to me to deliver these presents, let's have a look at this list..." He paused for a moment, looking as thoughtfully as possible at the piece of paper before his expression twisted into a frown and he whipped a pen out of his pocket, scribbling all over the sheet. "Well this just isn't right... this little boy has definitely been naughty... and this one... naughty, naughty, naughty, naught-"

"Raiga, what are you going to do with the naughty ones?" Kyouki asked, arching an eyebrow at Raiga, who merely responded with a horrible, twisted smile.

"Just... punish them. You know, teach them a lesson..."

"...Right, you are definitely not allowed to go alone." Kisame said through clenched teeth, if he didn't have the gift of self-control, he'd probably have grabbed Raiga by the throat and strangled him to death right there and then. "Someone needs to keep him under control... I nominate Mangetsu!"

"Why me, eh?" Mangetsu asked, his eyes practically full of tears at the prospect of having to travel the world with Raiga.

"Because I hate you. I thought I'd made that pretty clear by now." Kisame rolled his eyes disapprovingly before folding his arms and leaning back against the wall.

"Well, if I have to go I'm taking Kyouki with me, eh!" he pointed his finger directly at Kyouki, who was attempting to use all the awkward tension as an opportunity to sneak out of the room and avoid the others until new year.

"...God damn you Mangetsu..." she muttered under her breath.

"I hate to be the one who points this out, but how are the three of you going to get round the world in one night?" Choujuurou finally spoke up, after ages of standing silently, being the only one to actually mourn the death of Santa.

"Shut up Choujuurou. Everyone knows that Santa's power is all in his hat... or some shit like that."

"Yeah, it's nothing Raiga can't handle, eh!"

"RAIGA! Bring me back some cookies. I only like double chocolate chip ones. Oh, and some milk to drink with them. We've completely run out because that woman never does any shopping. Would it kill her to put in a little effort? Not that it matters, I'm certain that she'll change her ways when she marries Kisame... Which reminds me, I met a man yesterday, he was called Ronald and he's so funny! I'm sure we'll be 'best friends' in no time..."

"SHOUTGUN!" Kyouki and Mangetsu yelled in unison, momentarily drowning out Tatsuya's crazy ramblings. Not that he minded this time though, he just carried on talking to no one in particular, as if nothing had happened, waving his arms about extravagantly in an attempt to convey a completely nonsensical point.

"...I SAID IT FIRST, EH!"

"No you didn't!"

"Yes I did, eh!"

"Nuh uh!"

"Ya-"

"SHUT UP. Both of you have to sit in the back."

"Awww, no fair, eh!"

"See what you did? You ruined everything!" Of course, this wasn't the end of the bickering between Kyouki and Mangetsu, it was just that Raiga forcibly dragged them out of the building by the backs of their collars.

"...and you know who else is a bitch? Magnus, I really don't like that boy. He's always so grumpy. Not to mention all the death threats he sends me." Tatsuya finished, completely oblivious to the fact his rant had been completely overshadowed by a childish argument.

"Who's Magnus?" Kisame asked, a confused expression plastered across his face.

"Shut up, you of all people should know!" Tatsuya pointed a finger accusingly at Kisame, who still only gave Tatsuya the same confused expression. He then turned towards the wall muttering "You'll know soon enough..."

"Who are you talking to?" Kisame asked, now looking much more disturbed than confused.

"The fourth wall." Tatsuya shrugged.

"The fourth wall isn't actually a wall..."

"Yes it is, see. One, two, three, four." Tatsuya replied with a hint of irritation, pointing to each of the walls in turn, as if Kisame was completely incapable of counting for himself.

"But what if you started at a different wall? Then the fourth wall would be somewhere else..."

"STOP INTERRUPTING MY CRAZY!"

"Hey you guys, I'm back!" Zabuza announced, as he appeared the doorway dragging with him a young... girlish looking boy.

"You left?" Tatsuya asked, arching an eyebrow, usually he stalked Zabuza enough to know where he was at all times.

"Yeah, I went to go get Haku... my... little sister..." Zabuza replied with a great amount of uncertainty, given that he had probably rehearsed that lie a thousand times over.

"Zabuza, why do you keep telling everyone I'm your sister? It's really creepy, do you have a sister-compl-" Before Haku could finish his question, Zabuza quickly slapped a hand over his mouth, leaving the young boy to utter complete and utter gibberish.

"WE SHOULD DO SOMETHING! THIS PLACE DOESN'T LOOK VERY CHRISTMASY, LET'S DECORATE IT!"

"...Okay..." Tatsuya arched an eyebrow, it was a rare occurrence when someone managed to make themselves look almost as bat shit crazy as he did.

"Do we have to put up Christmas stuff?" Kisame muttered bitterly, rubbing his temples in irritation as Zabuza ran around, pulling out Christmas lights and bits of tinsel. "I really hate th- ZABUZA WILL YOU STOP TRYING TO PUT A STAR ON MY HEAD!"

"Are you just grumpy because she's going around the world with Raiga? She's gonna marry Raiga!" Zabuza asked in as condescending a tone as he could manage, making it sound like he was speaking to a small child as opposed to his superior.

"...Are _you _jealous because she might marry Raiga?"

"_I_ don't love Kyouki..." Zabuza gave Kisame what would have been a smug smile, had his face not been covered in bandages.

"That's not what I was implying." Kisame replied in an equally smug and derisive manner.

"...I do not... love Raiga." Zabuza's facial expression quickly contorted into one of irritation, his shoulders slumped and his eyes narrowed, even on Christmas it was an impossible task to avoid gay jokes.

"Yes you do. We've all seen the way you look at him... gazing lovingly at him from across the room. Just wishing for him t-"

"I AM NOT GAY! I like girls!"

"Then why do you like-" Haku began, only to be interrupted by Zabuza, who now seemed like he was one step away from completely flipping his lid.

"WHY WOULD NOT BEING GAY AFFECT ME LIKING CHRISTMAS HAKU? YOU'RE SUCH A SILLY CHILD!"

Meanwhile, about five miles down the street, Raiga was going through something which he considered to be one of the most unholy forms of torture known to man.

"Are we done yet?" Kyouki asked for the twelfth time, despite them having only visited around two houses.

"No."

"Are we done yet, eh?" Mangetsu asked, even though they had made no further advancement.

"No."

"Are we-"

"NO, BE QUIET. If you two don't shut up, I swear, I will turn this thing around and we will go straight home!"

"You're being a bugger, eh." Mangetsu muttered, folding his arms and curling up in the corner of the back seat, like a sulking child.

"Huh!" Kyouki hit Mangetsu lightly on the arm, and said in an equally childish manner "You said a bad word. Do you even know what that means? It means butt sex. You just told Raiga he was a butt sex. You may as well have told him to sex off."

"Sex is a naughty word, eh!"

"No it's not."

"YES IT IS, EH!"

Raiga shuddered, trying to shut out the sound of Mangetsu and Kyouki's childish argument. It was going to be a long night...

_Back At The Base_

"Right, I'm going off to irritate Kisame. You." Zabuza shot a glare in Tatsuya's direction.

"WHAT?"

"...Leave Haku alone." and with that, Zabuza left, slamming the door behind him and praying to himself that whatever happened Tatsuya wouldn't wind up striking up a conversation with Haku.

"Tch, whatever, I have more important things to do, I have a plan to set up!" Tatsuya announced to the door, as if his 'master plan' was something completely ungodly. He then sifted through several card board boxes full of old (and probably dangerous) Chirstmas decorations. Every so often looking up to see that Haku was constantly staring at him. "...Is there something you want? I know I'm irresistible but please try, you're Zabuza's 'sister' and I'm not really interested."

A few minutes passed of Tatsuya rummaging through various boxes, never once looking up to check on Haku, until he felt a sharp pain... in the region of his butt.

"OUCH, HOLY SHIT! Did you just bite me on the ass?" He asked, staring down at Haku, who merely blinked and gave Tatsuya and innocent smile. "WHAT KIND OF PERSON DOES THAT? First off, why even bite me? And if you're going to bite me, why on the ass? There is something seriously wrong with you."

"Calm down..." Choujuurou said, grabbing Haku by the shoulders in an attempt to restrain him from murdering Tatsuya. However, Haku merely wriggled out of Choujuurou's grasp, grabbed some nearby Christmas lights and began strangling the poor boy to death.

"You're a demon child. I'm going to fetch an exorcist!"

_Somewhere Down the Street_

"Who in the hell goes ass-first down a chimney?" Kyouki yelled, impatiently tapping her foot as she glared at Mangetsu, who was probably in the single most uncompromising situation he had ever experienced in his life.

"Right there's a simple solution, eh. Raiga you'll have to come back up the chimney and push me out, eh."

"I am not putting my face in your arse." Came Raiga's blunt, yet muffled, reply.

"Well you have to stay there all night then..."

"Why can't you pull him up?"

"...I might slip and fall off the roof..." Kyouki eventually replied, after around five minutes of trying to think of a good enough excuse for not being of any help.

"YOU'RE A NINJA!" Raiga yelled, unable to believe the stupidity of his co-worker.

"...and?" She replied as if Raiga had just said something completely illogical to her.

"Fine, I'm going out the window." Raiga said bitterly. Moments later there was he sound of shattering glass as Raiga leaped through the window, as if he was part of some action movie. "Right, you pull him out and if either of you fall, I'll catch you."

"GOD NO!"

_Meanwhile_

"...and then he started strangling poor Choujuurou until he was unconscious, for no reason." Haku stood explaining his version of the situation to Kisame and Zabuza, in as childlike and innocent a voice as he could manage.

"DON'T BELIEVE A WORD SHE SAYS, SHE BIT ME ON THE ASS! I may not have been able to find an exorcist, but I will get you somehow!"

"Would you stop shouting for once in your life and explain why you tried to kill Choujuurou. Again." Kisame demanded whilst rubbing his temples, trying to prevent the migraine that always came along with Tatsuya.

"WHAT? I did no such thing, I would never intentionally hurt a team mate."

"Last week you repeatedly slammed his head in the door for taking your pencil..." Zabuza pointed out.

"But..." Tatsuya began, pausing mid sentence because he wasn't sure which he was meant to be justifying. His dislike of Haku, or why it was unacceptable for Choujuurou to touch his belongings. "...She bit my ass. BIT. MY. ASS."

"Shut up and get out."

"FINE. But I'm right, she's evil I say. You'll see, YOU'LL ALL SEE."

In spite of how horrible a time Tatsuya thought he was having back at home, it really didn't compare to how the other three were getting on in the sleigh. Raiga sat in the front, fuming at the immaturity of the other two, who he had now ordered just to sit down and shut up. At least ten minutes of awkward silence had passed them before Kyouki's lack of self-control betrayed her and she began sifting through people's Christmas presents, in search of something remotely entertaining. After a few minutes of searching she had some how managed to find a banana amongst the huge stack of presents, and was now holding it in front of her mouth, like a sinister, yellow smile.

"Mangetsu, Mangetsu. Who am I?" She whispered, in the hope that she wouldn't disturb Raiga and invoke his wrath again.

"Raiga, eh!" Mangetsu shouted, accidentally prompting Raiga to turn round and yell at them for the thousandth time that night.

"I DO NOT HAVE A BANANA MOUTH!"

"Then why does your mouth look like a banana?"

"It looks nothing like a banana, look" He said, taking the banana out of Kyouki's hand and holding it up next to his face. "This is a banana, this is my mouth, see the difference?"

"...Wait, which one is your mouth again, eh?"

"THE ONE ATTATCHED TO MY FACE!"

"But... it's so banana like" Kyouki said, in near amazement. Raiga on the other hand, just turned round and slumped down in the seat, as if he had fallen into a deep state of depression.

"...the two of you... you've put me off children for life..."

"Aww Raiga... we're sorry, how about a hug to cheer you up?"

"Firstly, hell no. Secondly, earlier on you jumped up and down on Mangetsu until he fell down a chimney, fell down it yourself, nearly broke your ankle, woke up everyone in that house and then proceeded to kill them all ON CHRISTMAS... just so you could avoid me touching you if you fell off a roof."

"...Fair enough..."

"What about from me, eh?"

"No."

"Hey, Raiga. Raiga. Raiga. Raiga. Rai-"

"THAT'S IT. I know we've only done four houses, but we're going home!"

"...are you sure you don't want a hug, eh?"

"Perhaps Suigetsu could give me a hug..." Raiga's expression suddenly changed back to it's usual, lecherous and utterly disturbing form. If only he had thought of it earlier, he might just have got Kyouki and Mangetsu to shut up for a while.

_About 2 hours later_

"Hey, you two. You're under mistletoe."

"Yes, Tatsuya. Because you have covered every inch of the ceiling in it...well done."

"THAT DOESN'T MATTER, YOU STILL HAVE TO KISS!"

"No." Kisame said bluntly, turning his back on Tatsuya and trying to walk away.

"You have to." Tatsuya quickly ran across the room in order to block the exit. "It's tradition... and the law."

"...no it's not." Kyouki sighed.

"YES IT IS. Now hurry up and kiss so you can fall in love and get married." he pointed his finger commandingly at them, his eyes widening with every word.

"No." Kisame repeated.

"But-"

"Hey Tatsuya, we're under the mistletoe..." Raiga said, suddenly appearing in the doorway with a creepy smile painted on his face.

"No, go away." Tatsuya choked out. Not even turning around to look at Raiga, he just stood there frozen in fear.

"But it's '_the law_'"

"Please... get away. Repressed memories are flooding back..." Tatsuya attempted to back away from Raiga, but quickly found himself completely up against the wall.

"Ahh yes, I remember you when you were a little boy, Tatsuya."

"OH GOD."

Elsewhere in the base, Zabuza had somehow managed to hide Haku from Raiga and had now been left to deal with the Choujuurou, since no one else could bear the sight of him when he was concious.

"Ow... my head really hurts..."

"Yeah, Tatsuya tried to kill you." Zabuza sighed, he really did think that by this time whenever Choujuurou woke up from a state of unconsciousness the logical thing to do would be to blame Tatsuya.

"No he didn't... it was that Haku... girl?"

"DON'T BE RIDICULOUS CHOUJUUMETHEW. OF COURSE I WAS THE ONE WHO TRIED TO STRANGLE YOU!" Tatsuya screamed, bursting into the room in an attempt to rid himself of Raiga.

"But she attacked you and I tried to help and-"

"That... is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Innocent little Haku would never hurt anyone. THIS IS SO TYPICAL OF YOU CHOUJUUROU!"

And this, was what everyone hoped would be the last Christmas the organisation ever spent together.


	15. Valentine's Day Is For Hobos

_A/N: It seems ridiculously early to be putting this chapter up, but since it's been such a long time since this story got updated... in the Valentine's spirit, it'd be great if any of you voted in the poll currently on my profile... although it might never actually happen it'd be nice to get some opinions xD_

_

* * *

_"Choujuurou," Raiga said, "For the last time, I will not go out with you, you disgust me in every possible way... love Raiga."

Choujuurou gave Raiga a dejected look and began lightly kicking his feet back and forth in a desperate attempt to look as childlike and innocent as possible. "But... who'll be my Valentine?"

"Ao." Raiga sighed, looking down at his feet to avoid Choujuurou's hopelessly pathetic glance, no matter how childish he looked, Choujuurou was the last person on Earth who Raiga – or anyone else for that matter – would dream of sleeping with. "Ao will like you, he's desperate for anyone."

"Really?" for the first time since he joined the organisation, there was a glimmer of hope in Choujuurou's eyes, to which Raiga merely responded with an irritated nod. "I'll go over there right now."

Raiga let out a sigh of relief as he watched Choujuurou run off in search of Ao. Valentine's Day – being the one day a year he was actually banned from going out hunting for small children – was bad enough without having Choujuurou follow him around like a lost puppy. Although as much as Raiga's spirit was crushed by not having his daily fix of children, he couldn't help but feel as if his colleagues were going to be faced with a much more painful and suicide-inducing day. At least, that's how he felt when a short walk along the corridor brought him across Mangetsu, sobbing into a table whilst Kyouki attempted to feign sympathy for him.

"God damn that government, eh. I can't believe they... wouldn't let me see her on today of all days... IT WAS BAD ENOUGH WE COULDN'T EVEN BE TOGETHER AT CHRISTMAS, EH!"

"It." Kyouki replied, staring into the blank space in front of her. After almost four hours of listening to Mangetsu whine about his imaginary relationship with a mass of land, she had completely given up on trying to work out what was so special about this day in particular.

"What, eh?" Mangetsu suddenly raised his head and stared at Kyouki with nothing but utter disgust. She merely nonchalantly shifted her gaze – so as to look at him out of the corner of her eye – and let out a slightly weary sigh.

"Isn't Canada technically an 'it'?" she asked,"... not a 'her'?"

"What are you talking about?" Mangetsu stood up as he spoke, slamming his hands down on the table, "Of course she's a her, eh!"

"Mangetsu, it's a mass of land," she replied, sounding defeated, "it lacks the sexual organs to identify it as such... it lacks organs in general."

"JUST SHUT UP, SHUT UP AND GET OUT, EH!" And with that, Mangetsu returned to hiding his face in the table. Allowing Kyouki to get out while she still could.

"...What just happened there?" Raiga stood, staring wide-eyed at Kyouki. Ordinarily, she and Mangetsu had what was by far, the least volatile relationship in all of the organisation.

"He's pissy because he's not allowed to spend 'this special day' with Canada... anyway, shouldn't you be out pedoing?"

"No, it's my day off..." Raiga explained, only to realise Kyouki was looking at him with a ridiculously confused expression. "Like Halloween is for vampires..."

"So vampires get Halloween off, and you pedofiles get the second day of Lupercalia off? You should probably feel screwed over."

Raiga opened his mouth, as if he was about to correct her but quickly snapped it shut when the two of them noticed something rather unusual. After all, it wasn't every day that Zabuza Momochi strolled through the corridors, dressed in formal wear and carrying a bunch of flowers.

"Where are you going all dressed up, Zabuza?" Kyouki asked, not sure whether she was trying to cover up her laughter or her worry.

"WHAT? I'M NOT DRESSED UP. AND WHAT MAKES YOU THINK I'M GOING ANYWHERE. I. AM. NOT. GAY!"

"...You're wearing a suit and do you always carry a bunch of flowers round the house?"

"I was going to a funeral... STOP QUESTIONING ME."

"Whose funeral was it?" Raiga asked, a sudden flicker of excitement appearing in his voice. "Why wasn't I invited?"

Zabuza stared blankly at the two of them for a few moments, before the fact that once again, his lies were failing to work set in and he threw a complete hissy fit,"...FINE THEN! I won't go! I'll just stay here and not be gay!"

"You..." "wouldn't happen to know where Kisame is, would you? I need to go ask him something..."

"Are you sure you want to speak to him today? If Tatsuya sees you..." Raiga almost considered pointing out to Kyouki, that since it was in fact Valentine's Day, and Tatsuya was lurking around somewhere, that it probably wouldn't be the best idea she had ever had to go looking for Kisame. However, since he hadn't seen Tatsuya all day, and if Kyouki hadn't already noticed it was Valentine's Day, then he could just abandon all hope of ever getting the idea through to her. "Nevermind, he's in the lounge."

And without another word Kyouki and Raiga walked away from each other. Raiga, went off in search of Tatsuya, since there was an extremely good chance of him doing something stupid and highly amusing today. Kyouki on the other hand, went off in search of Kisame. Who was probably the only hope of sanity she would be able to find that day.

"Kisame... why is everyone acting like a bunch of bat shit crazy asylum escapees today?"

"Isn't that how they usually act?" He replied with the smallest amount of emotion possible, arching an eyebrow as if he was expecting her to have known better.

"...Yes, but today they're more irritating."

"I don't know then... we'll just need to avoid them for the rest of the day, I guess."

"Fuck. Okay so...what do you want to do then?"

"...we could watch crappy films and make fun of all the people in them."

"Do we even own films?"

"I'm sure Zabuza has some shitty romance films somewhere..."

_**Meanwhile**_

"Who have you got there Tatsuya?" Raiga asked, trying desperately to stop himself from cracking into a huge smile. He had known it was only a matter of time before Tatsuya showed up

"This," Tatsuya paused, purely for dramatic effect "...is Konan."

Raiga however, was not impressed by Tatsuya's pregnant pause. There was something about this latest hostage that just didn't quite sit well with him. "I know it's not out of the ordinary for you to kidnap people you like... but why have you kidnapped a woman this time?"

"Woman? Haha, there must be something wrong with your eyesight Raiga. He is clearly a man, a very manly man."

"Tatsuya... she has boobs, look." Raiga pointed to Konan's chest, but judging by Tatsuya's facial expression, he was still a long way off getting the point. "And anyway... are you a woman, Konan?"

"Yes."

"...Oh god... I _tou__ched_ it, ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww" Tatsuya began frantically wiping his hands on Raiga's shirt, trying to get rid of what little trace of Konan was remaining on them. "YOU CAN JUST GO BACK TO WHEREVER YOU CAME FROM!"

"NO, PLEASE, KEEP HER!" Today, Tatsuya's yelling was clearly a lot louder than usual. He was used to people yelling back at him – sometimes they even chased him, threatening to kill him. However, this was the first time he had ever been yelled at by someone in a completely different village to him, and needless to say it caught him completely off guard.

"WHO ARE YOU?" he yelled back, blanking out the fact that Raiga was one step away from being in the foetal position, his hands firmly clamped over his ears, to stop his eardrums from bursting.

"I'M NAGATO. THE ONE WHOSE TEAM MATE YOU JUST KIDNAPPED!"

"OH... WELL THEN, SHE'S YOUR PROBLEM!"

"YOU TOOK HER, YOU CAN KEEP HER."

"I THOUGHT SHE WAS A MAN."

"WELL, THAT'S YOUR OWN FAULT FOR BEING SUCH AN IDIOT."

"YOU CAN'T BE MEAN TO ME, I'M AN ORPHAN!"

"YOU KILLED YOUR OWN PARENTS, MINE WERE MURDERED BY SOMEONE ELSE! I'M THE ONLY REAL ORPHAN HERE!"

"HOW DO YOU KNOW I KILLED THEM?"

"_EVERYONE_ KNOWS."

"OKAY LOOK, HOW ABOUT WE CUT HER IN HALF?"

"FINE, YOU TAKE THE HALF THAT SPEAKS, I'LL HAVE HER LEGS... I COULD BE DOING WITH A NEW PAIR ANYWAY."

"I WAS THINKING MORE... DOWN THE MIDDLE!" Tatsuya stood in the hallway in what felt like hours of silence, trying to convince himself that Nagato was just silently contemplating their agreement. Sadly for Tatsuya, he once again found himself confronting one of his greatest dislikes. He was being ignored. "... HELLO?"

As the room slowly filled up with silence, Raiga's ears finally stopped ringing, and he felt it safe to stand up again. Had it not been for several shuffling noises in the background, Raiga could have sworn Tatsuya had destroyed his hearing.

"Why are you climbing out of the window?" Raiga asked, suddenly noticing that Zabuza – using Tatsuya's yelling as a cover up – had somehow managed to sneak into the hall and was now standing with his left leg firmly on the ground and his right dangling out the window, as if he were riding some invisible broomstick.

"I was testing it... to see if it was... resistant to... people." Zabuza tried his very best to sound convincing, but completely failed, and his voice came out as shaky and unsure. Not that Raiga would have believed him, even if he did have a perfectly solid reason for practically hanging out the window.

"and?"

"and what?"

"Is it _resistant_?"

"Yes... yes it seems it." Zabuza replied and then we a heavy sigh, he crawled back in through the window

"Why are you questioning it, Raiga? All he's doing is making sure we're safe!" Usually, Tatsuya would have given Raiga holy hell for questioning Zabuza, but – fortunately for everyone's eardrums, his voice was beyond hoarse from channeling his yelling all the way over to Amegakure.

"Tatsuya, he was trying to sneak out so he could go see Haku..."

"Ohhh... Zabuza, why do you feel the need to hide the fact you're going out with Haku?"

"I AM NOT GOING OUT WITH HAKU! I AM DEFINITELY LEAVING TO DO SOMETHING THAT ISN'T GAY!"

"He's going to do something gay..." Tatsuya whispered, although he did it loud enough for Zabuza to hear.

"I know," Raiga replied with an equal amount of subtlety, "let's follow him..."

Zabuza of course, didn't actually have anything to do (much less anything that wasn't gay), and so he headed for the one place where the Seven Swordsmen spent their time, the lounge. Now, to the ordinary person, coming across Kyouki and Kisame asleep on the sofa with the TV on mute in the background probably wouldn't be that big a deal. However, if you imagine that you are inside Zabuza's mind for all of three seconds, you will soon understand just how out of proportion things were about to be blown.

"Well, well, look what we have here?"

"OH MY GOD, THERE IS NO DENYING YOUR RELATIONSHIP NOW." Tatsuya yelled, loud enough for the whole village to hear, a huge smile cracking across his face as he did so.

"What?...what's going on?" Kyouki asked, sitting up and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes... the last thing you really want to see waking up is Raiga, Zabuza and Tatsuya, all looming over you.

"You two have quite clearly been having a romantic day together." Tatsuya replied, his tone slightly calmer now, although he still had the smile of a genuine psychopath plastered across his face.

"No... what are you talking about?" she asked, even more confused than she had been at the beginning of the day.

"You two. We come in to find you curled up together, a romantic movie on in the background..."

"We were messing around-"

"Messing around were you?" Zabuza asked, visibly smirking beneath the bandages.

"Yes messing around, with German accents and-" Kyouki stopped mid-sentence, it seemed that what she was actually saying was finally setting in. "OH, SHUT UP. We were making fun of it, we dubbed over the voices. That's why the sound is off."

"They probably didn't want the noise distracting their 'activities'"

"Shut. Up. Raiga. Kisame, would you please wake up and help?" She nudged him in the arm, attempting to wake him up. Although it was completely futile, since the only response he had to offer was a kind of half-grunt.

"Let him sleep, you must have worn him out..."

"Raiga. I am going to murder you... slowly and painfully."

"Oh really? Because you're what, a torture specialist?"

"Yes."

"Shit. I forgot you had a job before you became the obligatory woman."

Fortunately for Kyouki, before the situation could escalate any further, the four of them were interrupted be loud banging noises... followed by lots of screaming.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS THING?" Ao burst into the room, dangling – an either unconscious or dead – Choujuurou by the neck.

"That would be Choujuurou, it loves you." Raiga stated, smiling as sweetly as his terrifying face would allow him to.

"Well, I don't love it. It's disgusting and it totally ruined Valentine's day... Oh, Zabuza. Hello~"

"I have a girlfriend now, don't try anything." Zabuza warned, backing away from Ao until he found himself quite literally against a wall.

"I don't mind if she joins in..."

Needless to say, everyone ended up spending the rest of Valentine's Day, hiding a screaming Zabuza from Ao. Except for Mangetsu, who was still rambling on to himself about how unfair life was, and how he wished that Canada would just return his feelings. It would be lovely to say he stopped eventually, but...


	16. Master of the Swords

Kisame was alone. There wasn't a single scream, shout or cry of 'Someone stabbed Choujuurou, again'. All of that, was much, much further away from him... which was probably the only reason he had ever agreed to fill out the organisation's immense amount of paperwork. It was one of the few things in the world he could trust the others to keep away from, meaning that the times when he was working on it, were the only times he could ever actually let his guard down.

Which is probably why the excited shout of, "Hey Kisame, can you do me a favour?" caused him to fall backwards of his chair and stare up at the green-haired girl like a startled infant would.

"Sure..." he answered eventually, pulling himself to his feet after getting over the initial wave of embarrassment.

"Thanks, I knew you would... _sucker._"

"What?"

"Nothing... Anyway, you know this mission I'm going on?" Kyouki asked. Whether she was actually asking a genuine question or just trying to point out that from time to time, she did actually work, was unbeknownst to Kisame. And so, he merely responded with a shallow nod. "Yeah, I need you to look after Mangetsu while I'm gone..."

"...But he's a grown man..." Kisame said, but judging by the confused expression on her face, Kyouki clearly wasn't understanding his point. "He can look after himself..."

"Oh you'd think that, but he's more of a gremlin than a man. There are really strict rules for looking after him; he can't have maple syrup after midnight, if he wants to touch your hair or something, just let him, you can tell he's angry or upset when he stops saying 'eh' so you know... just jingle some keys or something and he'll get distracted and whatever you do...you have to listen to him talk about hockey... but never actually play it with him – he'll kill you."

Kisame stood there for a moment, frozen and horrified. It didn't really take much for him to come to a decision on the matter. "No, I'm not doing it."

"But you said you'd do me a favour, you can't take it back now!"

"I thought you meant water the plants or something."

Kyouki sighed, "Just think of him as a Venus Flytrap... except instead of digesting you, he'll just... hug you... and never let go."

"No." Kisame replied, now more horrified than he had been when Kyouki drew up her Gremlins analogy.

"You know I'm only asking you to do this 'cause you're the only person who I trust enough to do it..."

"I don't care." This time, Kisame didn't even bother to look up from his paperwork. And so, an awkward silence began to fill the room.

"Kisame." Kyouki slammed her hands down on Kisame's desk, her face now visibly twitching from irritation, "If you don't do this, I swear to god, I am going to phone your dad and I will tell him that Zabuza is totally up for it."

"..."

After that, it no further convincing was needed. Kisame decided that babysitting Mangetsu would be a much easier task than listening to Zabuza cry and scream over 'attempted rape'. Kyouki left for her mission, and for all of fifteen minutes Kisame found himself actually being able to get on with some work of his own. That was until Mangetsu burst in, as if he sensed that Kisame wasn't quite in a bad enough mood already and had made it his mission to fix that.

"Have you seen Kyouki? She's been missing for like... ten minutes, eh."

There were a lot of things Kisame could have said in response to that, _'She can't leave you for more than ten minutes?'_, _'Have you ever thought you might have S__eparation __A__nxiety __D__isorder__?'_ or indeed '_Why hasn't Kyouki killed herself yet?'_ . Although eventually, he settled for a much simpler response.

"She's away on a mission... apparently I have to look after you until she gets back."

"...what...?" Mangetsu replied, with all the horror and disdain that Kisame himself had expressed when told he'd be spending the next three days looking after him. "Well, until she gets back... do you want a game of hockey, eh?"

"No."

"But-" Mangetsu tried to whine at Kisame, but promptly stopped when he felt a horrible shiver crawl up his spine, like all that was good and pure had been drained from the world.

"Raiga... where are you going with those matches and gasoline?" Well that explained everything.

"Just to a cave..." Raiga avoided eye contact with the other two, as if he wanted them to know he was lying, "I'm taking the boy scouts out on an expedition."

"But there are no boy scouts..." Kisame knew full well that the fact there were no boy scouts, wasn't the only issue with Raiga taking small children off to a cave, no doubt in the deepest, darkest part of the woods. But as time was wearing on, he was losing the will to even try and put a stop to Raiga's... hobbies.

Raiga stood there for a few moments, staring past Kisame and out the window, his face devoid of all emotion. Then, after managing to pull an expression that looked vaguely like surprise, he pointed to one of the few trees that remained outside the base. "Oh look, someone's lynched Choujuurou again!"

"What?" Kisame quickly spun round, it honestly wouldn't have been a surprise to him if he had seen Choujuurou, hanging lifeless from a tree. Instead however, there was nothing. And upon turning back around, he saw nothing but fleeting shadows. "...Goddamn it, Raiga."

It wasn't as if Raiga disappearing – no doubt off to molest children again – greatly bothered Kisame. In fact, it seemed to fill the room with a sort of silence, that although being very uneasy, allowed Kisame to completely forget about the responsibility that Kyouki had oh-so-charitably bestowed on him. That was until, for the third time this day, he was interrupted. This time, by a rather disgruntled looking Zabuza. "Kisame, there's a bit of a problem."

"What now?"

"...Mangetsu set up a pony farm in my room."

"What are you talking about? He's right... here..." Kisame stared blankly at the – now empty – space where he was convinced Mangetsu was standing. And for what felt like ages, he stood there under the impression that if he maintained that blank expression for long enough Mangetsu would soon re-materialise. Although Kisame should have known Lady Luck was never on his side. "WHERE THE HELL HAS MANGETSU GONE?"

"Like I said, he's in my room. AKA the village's LOCAL PONY FARM!"

"You seem to be upset about something, Zabuza..." Kisame replied absent mindedly, having only just realised he had barely been listening to Zabuza at all.

"There are ponies in my room. I woke up... and one of them was licking my face. And I think one of them ate my sword."

For the first time that day, or even that month, Kisame could feel a smile tugging at the side of his lips, "And here I was thinking you'd be used to that by now."

Sadly, that smile wasn't about to hang around for long. As amusing as Zabuza's pain was, there was always one thing that could ruin the fun of it all. That thing, was Tatsuya, bursting into the room and whining about nothing in particular.

"There are ponies upstairs! They are so damn cute. I got to pet one and give it a carrot. Mangetsu said it was called Canuck and I was sure we'd be friends forever but then I put my hand in it's mouth... AND THEN HE BIT ME!... and now my hand hurts. Kiss it better Kisame, please...!"

Kisame sighed, trying as best he could to stop himself from bursting a blood vessel. "Go to hell, Tatsuya."

"But, but Kisame~ my hand really hurts! If you don't kiss it better it'll fall off!" Kisame attempted to brush past Tatsuya, only to have the older man latch onto his leg and cling for dear life. Although by now, Kisame was more than used to Tatsuya's advances, and so he simply carried on walking – dragging Tatsuya through the base as he went along. It was until they reached the black medieval-styled door that stood outside Raiga's room, that Kisame finally decided to stop.

"Go get Raiga to kiss it better."

"NO, NO, NO! It's fine now." Tatsuya said, suddenly springing to his feet, his face drained of all colour. He felt like this would have been an appropriate time to give Kisame a rant about his 'totally awesome healing powers', but before he could even open his mouth to speak, the whole base echoed with the sound of Mangetsu's screaming.

"MY PONY, EH!"

Lo and behold, when Kisame finally reached Zabuza's room – he found Samehada, with what appeared to be a horse's hoof poking through the bandages. It didn't really take a genius to put two and two together here. "Bad Samehada, bad! Don't. Eat. Ponies."

"Not Ottawa, anyone but Ottawa, eh." Mangetsu fell to his knees, tears streaming down his face, as twelve angry ponies stood there glaring at him. "Don't... look at me... like that, I'm very upset at the moment, eh."

"Why'd you name him Ottawa?" Tatsuya asked in an attempt to stop Mangetsu from crying. If it was coming from anyone but him, he really despised the sound of whining.

"Because... I like the Ottawa 67s but that'd be way too long a name, and 67s would just be a stupid name to give a pony. I was also considering naming it after the Calgary Hitmen, but that just didn't feel right, eh..."

"Jesus Christ..." Kisame muttered, trying to turn his back and leave the room before he was forced into further conversation with Mangetsu.

"You seem more grumpy than usual today, Kisame. Is it because you hair is hideous, eh? Because you know, I can fix that."

"So you're a hairdresser now?" Zabuza asked, appearing in the doorway with a large smirk on his face. "Maybe you should change your name to Man_gay_su."

"...just don't talk Zabuza..." Kisame sighed in disgust, before wandering off down the corridors, in an attempt to once again, rid himself of his ridiculously annoying team mates.

"Ohh, so you're allowed to make terrible puns but I'm not?"

"Exactly."

Some twenty minutes after leaving Mangetsu's room, Zabuza and Tatsuya were sat in the lounge (they felt obligated to be there, since if the room had feelings today it would be feeling abandoned and unloved). Zabuza was doing his best to catch up on all the sleep he had lost due to 'the great pony catastrophe' that had occurred in his room, but he was finding that rather difficult due to all the excited ramblings Tatsuya was blurting out. However, upon forcing open one eye, Zabuza found that it wasn't him Tatsuya was attempting to lecture... it was more that he was holding up a conversation with thin air.

"Who the hell are you talking to Tatsuya?"

"Frank." Tatsuya replied, as if he was stating the blatantly obvious.

"But he's not – WHY IS THAT CUP FLOATING?"

"I told you, Frank."

"Why are you not surprised by this, Kisame?" Zabuza screamed at Kisame, jumping to his feet and grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him as if he should have been fully informed on the situation, despite having only just entered the room.

"You know..." Kisame began, blinking out of confusion. "...Shark senses."

Three minutes later, and the door creaked open again. This time revealing Raiga, whose face appeared to be covered in a mixture of soot and blood. Leaving the other three – possibly even four – to stare at him with confused expressions plastered across their faces.

"Okay you guys, I can explain-" Raiga stopped flat in his tracks at the sight of the floating cup. His eyes widening more than he ever thought was humanly possible. "OH MY GOD, A GHOST!"

In a fit of panic Raiga grabbed what he thought was just a conveniently placed stick and began frantically beating the air with it in an attempt to beat Frank to death. What started out as surprise had now turned into blind anger, and of course, it didn't help when Tatsuya got between Raiga and the floating cup, with screams of, "RUN FRANK, RUN!"

No, in fact by this point Raiga was so consumed by his rage that he instead began to beat Tatsuya to death. It took the combined forces of the stick breaking, and Kisame and Zabuza using all their strength to finally make him calm down.

"Okay, Kisame. I have worked out the perfect hairstyle for-" Mangetsu paused mid way through sentence, staring at Raiga – who now looked like he was hyperventilating – with a look of horror and disgust. "Raiga did you break my hockey stick, eh?"

Raiga slowly stared down at the stick he was clutching and, after realising what it was promptly hurled it under a nearby sofa. "No..."

Mangetsu let out a heavy sigh, "You know something... I am so sick of you guys."

"Good. We should stay away from each other then." Kisame nodded in agreement, he could honestly say he would have absolutely no problem in spending the rest of his days far, far away from Mangetsu.

"No, I don't think that'll work..." Mangetsu replied, by now his Canadian accent had completely faded and his voice was left sounding completely hollow.

"Then what are you going to do? Challenge me to a game of hockey?"

"No...I'm taking the swords back."

"You're...what?"

"Well, I'm sick of all of you and since I'm master of the swords and all, I might as well take them back."

"That's not your title..." Zabuza added in, it was really the best he could do in an argument like this.

"It is now."

"Well... you can't... take anything from me." Tatsuya replied, staggering to his feet and slurring his speech like a drunk man, "I don't have a sword...'t's just a stick... see?" and from god knows where, Tatsuya produced a large black box.

"How many times do I have to tell you? That's just the cover." Mangetsu sighed, taking the box from Tatsuya and breaking the seal on it. "You can open it up like this."

Tatsuya stared at its contents, his eyes devoid of all emotion, "...it's... it's a needle and thread."

"Yes..."

"THAT IS SO GOD DAMN TYPICAL. WHY THE HELL DO I GET THE MOST WOMANLY SWORD? IT'S NOT EVEN A REAL SWORD! WHAT AM I GON NA DO EXACTLY, WHAT KIND OF DAMAGE CAN THAT DO? 'OOOOH BETTER NOT MESS WITH TATSUYA, HE'LL STITCH YOU UP!' I HATE YOU. I HATE THIS CRAPPY SWORD. JUST TAKE THAT... THAT ABOMINATION BACK. I NEVER WANT TO SEE IT AGAIN!"

With that, Tatsuya stormed out of the room. Mangetsu considered forcibly taking the swords from the others, but soon realised that none of them actually carried them around. Thus, he was condemned to spending the rest of the day searching the base for them.

Needless to say, almost as soon as Mangetsu's back was turned Raiga said, "What's he really expecting from all this? We haven't ever actually needed those swords..."

_Later That Night_

It really had been a terrible day for Zabuza. First Mangetsu's ponies had robbed him of his sleep, and now no matter how hard he tried to drift off, the murmur of yelling from elsewhere in the base was now preventing him from getting his precious sleep. Since sleep is an activity that takes up almost all of Zabuza's time, the poor man was left with no other option but to investigate the source of his disturbance. Although when he reached the top of the stairs, he really wished he hadn't. He was greeted, with the sight of Raiga... arguing with a demented looking snake-like man, whose name he believed to be Orochimaru, and his army of the most bizarre looking children Zabuza had ever laid eyes on.

"I'll teach you to burn down my houssssse!" Orochimaru yelled.

"Well, you had it coming! You were a crappy pedofile!" Raiga replied. Of course, _that _would have to have been the reason for all this.

"I'm the besssst pedofile! I could out-pedo you, any time, any place!"

At this point, Zabuza considered stepping in and giving Orochimaru what for. But when he saw the little white-haired boy, who he was convinced once belonged to the Kaguya clan – trashing the base, he failed to say anything... out of despair for the organisation's pure lack of skill.

"Wha- what this hell is going on? First there were ponies, now the little gay flowerboy I..." Zabuza sighed, rolling his eyes. "Screw it, I'm going back to bed."

And so it was, that the base got trashed... or trashed beyond what the Seven Swordsmen themselves had managed to do to it. Somewhere over the course of the night, Tatsuya found himself being beaten up by a six year old boy and so he spent the night, curled up in a corner, crying and mumbling his 'last wishes'.

_The Next Morning_

"And, tell Kisame... I love hi-" Tatsuya practically fell unconscious from the kick Kisame delivered to his stomach, he really just wasn't getting the message.

"So Raiga... we never actually need our swords do we?" Zabuza asked, staring at Raiga with utter contempt. "Christ, trust Mangetsu to steal them the one time they'd be of use."

"I knew there was a reason I hated him." Kisame muttered.

"What are you guys whining about?" Kyouki asked. Usually when she returned from missions, she expected to see everyone trying to murder each other. But instead, she found herself greeted by three men who looked as if they had just found out they were having a mid-life crisis.

"The base got trashed." Raiga muttered like a sulking child.

"No... no it actually looks cleaner. I mean, that pile of rubbish looks slightly smaller." Kyouki paused for a moment, "Oh no wait, it's just been spread around the floor... someone get a broom and Choujuurou."

"Where is Choujuurou?" Kisame asked. Come to think of it, he hadn't seen Choujuurou at all yesterday either.

"Buried outside." Zabuza answered, "He'll be fine though, he has five minutes of oxygen left."

"Why'd you bury him alive?"

"Ninja training."

"What kind of training is that meant to be?"

"...Endurance...?"

"Well that makes sense... besides if he really is a ninja then he can dig himself out." Kyouki shrugged, "Now, why are you all looking so grumpy?"

Once again, it was left to Zabuza to explain the situation. "Raiga burnt down Orochimaru's house, then Mangetsu took all of our swords, _then _Orochimaru came round for revenge and here we are."

"...what did you do to Mangetsu?"

"Oh, Kisame was a dick." Raiga stated, trying to make himself look as innocent as possible.

"You were the one who broke his hockey stick!" Kisame yelled in response.

"Well if you had let him fix that mess you call a hairstyle he would have been fine!"

"My hair is not a mess."

"It looks like it's trying to escape your face!"

"At least my mouth doesn't look like a banana!"

"Yeah well you're _blue_!"

"...I'm going to find Mangetsu..." Kyouki sighed, of course there wasn't much 'finding' involved. She already knew full well that whenever Mangetsu was feeling particularly sulky, he would just lock himself in his room."Mangetsu? Are you in there?"

"No..."

"That's a shame... I guess I just won't be able to tell Mangetsu about how I met Canada..."

Barely a second had passed when Kyouki heard the 'click' of the door unlocking, and for the first time that day, a rather sullen looking Mangetsu appeared, "I'm listening... eh"

"Uh... well" Kyouki began, only to realise she hadn't actually come up with any kind of story she could tell Mangetsu, "You see, on the way back from that mission I was on, I just so happened to bump into Canada...which is why I was away for longer than I'd expected."

"What was she like, eh?"

"Uh... well she was... nice? But not overly nice. And she said she liked to talk about hockey and play X-box, but she wasn't very good..." Kyouki struggled to think of anything else to say, in spite of the many times she had heard Mangetsu ramble on about it, she actually knew next to nothing about Canada. "Apparently, she's quite a talented ninja... but not as good as you are. She also said she'd let you fix her hair whenever you wanted."

"She sounds perfect, eh! Can I meet her, eh?"

"...Sure... she's...er... coming back in... uh... a few weeks...?"

"I cannot wait, eh!" 

"Umm Mangetsu... can the others have their swords back now?"

"Sure, sure, eh." Mangetsu said, handing Kyouki the scroll containing all the swords. "I have to prepare, eh!"

Kyouki sighed with relief, although that relief was about to be completely shattered. When she turned round to see Zabuza, which was really enough to give anyone nightmares."Won't he be mad at you when Canada never comes?"

"No. He'll get ridiculously over excited, use up all his energy and pass out. When he wakes up he won't remember the last few days."

"You know, that Canada you were talking about... were you trying to make it sound like yourself or did that just come naturally?"

"Shut up!" she yelled, throwing the scroll at Zabuza's head. "It was the best I could do on such short notice... If he thought I was lying to him he'd never speak to me again."

"Whatever, it doesn't matter... just so long as we got our swords back."

"What would we have even called ourselves if we didn't have them? The Seven Assorted Ninjas?"

"You could have just made the village's first ladies club..."

"What."

"Never mind... I have to go... disappear now."

"Why?"

"Well, you remember that time we put LSD in Tatsuya's cereal?"

"Ah, yes. Good times..."

"Yeah well Mangetsu's going to start acting worse than that... speaking of Tatsuya, why is he crying in a corner?"

"He's had a rough couple of days, Kisame rejected him a lot... he got beaten up repeatedly..."

"Well, at least something good came of this..."


	17. Canada The Pornstar!

_A/N: Okay so, a lot more was intended to happen in this chapter, but since it's now the Easter holidays, and we don't have much time to write because of exams and homework and all that jazz, here is first (somewhat uneventful) story of something which I guess we'll just call the Mangetsu arc. I'd say enjoy, but I know that's unlikely, so let's go with 'Try not to die!" _

* * *

"...No. Not Choujuurou... anyone but him...!"

"He's having the Choujuurou nightmare again. Should we wake him up?" Raiga arched an eyebrow at the purple-haired man, as he lay sprawled out on the floor, twitching and shaking as if he were having a stroke.

"No, no. It'll be funny." Kyouki waved her hand dismissively, "Just think, in his head right now... Tatsuya is marrying Choujuurou."

"Wait, wait." Zabuza interrupted, attempting to stop the others from talking and drowning out the beautiful sound of Tatsuya's suffering. "This is where Raiga comes in."

"...why am I in the dress? Raiga... why are you my bridesmaid? ...no, no I'm not a woman... take the dress off Raiga." Tatsuya's facial expression quickly turned from displeasure into sheer horror, "NO, I... I meant put on some other clothes... RAIGA..."

"Here comes your favourite bit Kisame!" Zabuza grinned, whilst nudging his friend. Frankly, he wasn't sure which was more amusing to him, Tatsuya's suffering, or Kisame's.

"...I'm leaving." Kisame replied bluntly, standing up and storming out of the room. Not that the others blamed him, they would all have done the same if the next few words which escaped Tatsuya's mouth were about them.

"But...but I can't marry you... I love Kisame... what do you mean French Letters, Raiga?... why do the French need different letters?...They're not actual letters?...Frank...help me, Frank..."

"Why don't we get to be part of his wedding, eh?" Mangetsu gave Kyouki a rather disappointed look, to which she could only shrug in response. Although, as if right on cue, Tatsuya's unconscious mumblings began again.

"...why do I have to be married off?... the woman's the one engaged to Lucius Malfoy..."

"Lucius Malfoy?" she blinked in confusion, "Well, that's a new one..."

Several minutes of silence passed, whilst Tatsuya squirmed about – the others just laughing at his suffering, before Kisame re-emerged, wearing a disgruntled look on his face. "Take your god damn Canada 'porn' back!" he said, hurling what appeared to be a rolled up copy of the latest National Geographic, at Mangetsu.

"...Porn, eh?..." Mangetsu gave Kisame a bewildered look, before drawing his eyes down to the glossy pages that now lay in his hands. "...OH MY GOD, SHE'S NAKED, EH!"

"What's going on?" Tatsuya shouting, sitting bolt upright. "How did you get changed so quickly Raiga?"

"That was a dream, now shut up." Raiga hissed at the younger man, never once letting his eyes leave Mangetsu, "I think Mangetsu might have a mental breakdown sometime soon, and I don't want to miss it."

"How... how could she do this, eh?" Mangetsu could feel his eyes begin to well up with tears. "Pose naked for millions of people to see, eh."

"I'm sure it's not that bad, let me see..." Choujuurou said softly, attempting to offer some form of comfort to Mangetsu. Although it quickly became evident that his attempt had failed completely, when the only sound which resonated through the base, was that of Mangetsu's hand... slapping Choujuurou's face.

"Don't you dare look at her in her moment of shame, eh!"

"Kisame... what have you done?" Zabuza asked, gazing up at Kisame who just stood there, wide-eyed. By now, the fact that Kisame hated Mangetsu with every fibre of his being, was no big secret. And honestly, it would not have surprised Zabuza in the slightest if Kisame had set this whole thing up just to cause Mangetsu pain.

"What?" Kisame had the slightest flicker of sincerity in his voice, "I honestly thought he was into that kind of thing."

"My love for Canada has always been pure, eh!" By now, Mangetsu felt like he could hardly fight back the tears any longer. Without so much as another word, he turned and fled, slamming the door behind him. Leaving his cohorts sat there with completely vacant expressions.

After everyone's shock had subsided, Kisame found that he could hardly contain his laughter any more, to the point he barely managed to choke out his next sentence, "...He thinks the mass of land he pretends to go out with is a porn star... I should give him some Canada documentaries an-"

Although, the thing that actually prevented him from finishing it wasn't laughter. It was more, Kyouki's fist coming into contact with the right side of his face. "You are such a dick and I'm pretty sure Mangetsu would have wanted me to hit you for that." "I don't know, I missed out on the last ten or so minutes trying to figure out whether I was meant to punch you or not..."

"You can't hit him! You're meant to be in love with him...but I love him... You can't abuse your future husband even if I love him... wait, I'm confused." Tatsuya sighed, and strolled off into the corner of the room, where he began pacing back and forth whilst muttering to himself, "You have to marry Kisame, but I want to marry Kisame. I'm the one forcing you to get married, but I don't want to get married myself... but you _have _to get married... what should I do? Zabuza, help!"

"No."

"Anyway!" Kisame shouted, returning to his state of euphoria, "We should have a party, I'll go get drinks for everyone. Even you Choujuurou!... actually, not you Choujuurou."

"Doesn't your face hurt?" Zabuza asked, remembering that he too, knew what it felt like to be attacked by Kyouki.

"I'm way too happy to feel it." Kisame replied, grinning. Although seconds later the smile faded from his face, as he heard a voice which sent shivers down his spine.

"Ohh, I know that feeling, son."

"My face... suddenly hurts a lot more... Why did you punch me?"

"You had it coming." Kyouki grumbled, her fists still clenched, as if she were about to do it again.

"She's still as feisty as ever, eh son?" Erosame said to his son, his usual creepy smile plastered across his face.

"...I need to go look after Mangetsu."

"Oh? What's wrong with him? I miss his beautiful accent..."

"Kisame ruined his life."

"I didn't set out to do anything... it was just a lucky coincidence." Kisame instantly regretted saying this, when the left side of his face felt a sharp pain shoot through it. Indeed, Kyouki had punched him. _Again. _"WHAT THE HELL? AT LEAST HIT THE SAME SIDE!"

"Once again, you had it coming."

"...Maybe I should comfort Mangetsu." Erosame offered. Although it wasn't exactly clear whether he genuinely meant what he said, or if 'comfort' was a euphemism for 'molest', everyone seemed to have a fairly good idea...

"You just stay where everyone can see you." Kyouki mumbled, turning her back on everyone and beginning to head out the door. Although, the fact that Kisame's dad had returned made her ever so slightly apprehensive about having her back to them, thus, her hand never once left the kunai she kept in her pocket.

"Kyouki, you really should hurry up and go check on him." For a moment, everyone could have sworn they heard the vaguest hint of concern in Raiga's voice. "I think I can hear a rope swinging from the rafters."

"...I will deal with you all, later."

After more than two hours of Mangetsu sobbing on Kyouki's shoulder – resulting in her having to change her shirt at least four times, she began to wonder if comforting him was really the right thing to be doing. Although it would be impossible for her to beat up Canada, there was the slightest possibility that beating Kisame within an inch of his life might suffice. At least that way, Zabuza wouldn't be able to use the word 'comfort' as a euphemism for something else.

"I have to go see her, eh." Mangetsu finally choked out, after several hours of garbled nonsense.

"What?" Kyouki asked, slightly startled at the clarity of Mangetsu's voice.

"I have to see her," he repeated, lifting his head from Kyouki's shoulder so as to look her in the eye, "I thought maybe if I thought the whole thing through I could get over it. But no, I have to tell her it's over in person, eh."

"What do you mean you thought you could get over it? You've spent the last hour mumbling about how this whole thing was a massive betrayal of your trust... before that you were just screaming..."

"Well, now I've definitely decided that the relationship can not continue, eh."

"Okay..." If she were being entirely honest, Kyouki wasn't entirely sure that Mangetsu had the capacity to completely make up his mind on something. But, ever since the two of them were kids she had resolved to support him in whatever he did, and this was no exception, "do you want me to get the phone?"

"I can't break news like this over the phone. It needs to be in person, eh."

"And how are you going to get to Canada?"

"Didn't you once say you were an Airship pirate? Couldn't we just use your airship, eh?"

"It's er...in the shop..." Kyouki replied with a great deal of uncertainty, she always found it difficult to excuse her drunken behaviour, "I'll find another way to get us there..."

With that, she left the room. She had no idea how she was going to get them there, or indeed if she wanted to travel to Canada with a near-suicidal Mangetsu.

"Pack some bags, we're all going to Canada."

"What? Why?"

"Mangetsu needs to go there and he can't go alone. I can't go alone with him, I'll get us both killed. So you guys are coming too."

"Did I hear you say you were going to Canada?"

"Yes...what about it?"

"Well, I just happen to be conveniently passing by Canada on my way to find a treasure... of sorts, and I could use your help."

"Our help."

"Well... I certainly don't need all seven of you." Erosame's gaze shifted towards Kyouki, who completely froze on the spot. "Maybe just... the most piratey of you."

"I'm not going anywhere without the others." She replied flatly, "especially not with you."

"Fine. All of you can come." he sighed, sounding slightly defeated. Which didn't last long, as only a few moments later his eyes once again sparkled with perverted determination. "We might not have enough beds though, so you might have to share. I wouldn't mind letting you into my bed, it's nice and big and comfy."

"...I'll share with Mangetsu, Kisame can share with you."

"Are you sure...? My bed's more comfy."

"No, no, no." Kyouki smirked, fully intending to cause Kisame way more pain than a punch in the face could ever bring, "Kisame's the one who needs a good night's sleep."

"Tch" Kisame spat, avoiding all eye contact with her, "Are you sure you even need our help? Zabuza probably has it in his porn collection."

"What's a porn collection?" Choujuurou asked, only to be smacked upside the head by Raiga for being an 'ignorant little brat'.

"No, no. It's far too rare to be in any old porn collection!"

"Aha! You have clearly not seen my collection!" Zabuza announced, suddenly springing to his feet, a delighted look now painted across his face. "You should probably go check, just in case."

"I'm telling you it won't be in there. Now can we all just get ready and go?"

Everyone present took Erosame's word for it, and with that, they all parted ways. Unaware that for most of them, the next few days were going to be a lot more painful and soul crushing that usual...


	18. The Journey to Canada

"...It's a boat..." Tatsuya felt as though he was about to vomit. Not because of seasickness, just from his absolute disgust at their situation.

"Well spotted, we've only been here for a day." Zabuza rolled his eyes, as usual he found himself being the only person willing to pay any attention to Tatsuya. "What were you expecting?"

"I don't know... not this... I hate boats."

"Why?"

"They don't have electricity... how will I plug in my straighteners?"

"Your hair will be fine, now quit your bitching."

"But... but... it'll go poofy."

"Not unlike yourself then." Zabuza muttered under his breath, they had been away for little more than a day, and already he felt like strangling Tatsuya to death.

"Well yes, I do enjoy having my appearance match my perfect personality but I personally feel – and I'm sure you'll all have the sense to agree with me, that having unstraightened hair would ruin the fabulous image I have going." Tatsuya smirked, and ran a hand through his forelocks, as if over the course of his rambling he had actually managed to convince himself he was a supermodel. "Not that I don't appreciate you trying to cheer me up, you're always so kind to me, Zabuza. I'm glad we're friends, have I ever told you that? Let's be friends forever!"

"You know Tatsuya..." Mangetsu spoke up from one of the dark corners of the tiny room – where he had continued to spend hours crying on Kyouki's shoulder, his voice monotonous and his head held in his hands. "your hair has been looking a bit lifeless recently, if you just switch to a better shampoo, it'll be fine in no time..."

"...HOW DARE YOU INSULT MY PERFECT HAIR, I'LL KILL YOU!" After the realisation had actually set in, Tatsuya attempted to make a charge at Mangetsu. However, all it really took to hold him back was for Zabuza to hold on to the back of his shirt.

"Just shut up and calm down, Tatsuya." Kisame rolled his eyes, he could have sworn that over the course of this one day everyone had been much more annoying than they had been over the entirety of their time in the organisation.

"Ok Kisame..._I love you_..." Tatsuya did his best to try and give a sickly sweet smile to Kisame, who was in turn doing his best to try and avoid eye contact with the other man. Tatsuya's pathetic attempt at seduction was quickly brought to an end when he felt the excruciating pain of Kyouki kicking him full force in the shin. "OUCH, WHAT THE HELL WOULD YOU DO THAT FOR, THAT HURT YOU-"

"I was just getting the point across, you stay the hell away from Mangetsu."

Tatsuya's lower lip quivered slightly, for a few moments he had contemplated screaming the place down, disrupting everyone with his very loud voice whilst at the same time putting the woman in her place. However, by now he had done it so often that it had lost all effect, and in his warped sense of social interactions, the only thing left for him to do was wrap his arms around himself and collapse on the floor, "...Kisame... hold me."

"Ohh, so you're getting all defensive over your man, again?"

"Shut. Up. Zabuza."

"...but...you and Kisame...? You can't do... Wait a second," Tatsuya pulled himself to his feet, thumbing his lip as if he were deep in thought, "...if you marry Mangetsu then I can have Kisame all to myself, and we won't need to sneak around behind your back... this is perfect!"

"No one said anything about marriage... she just wanted to sleep with him."

"What? No! Kisame is _mine _now, no one else can have him. I am the only one allowed to touch hi-" Of course, after being subjected to listening to Tatsuya ramble on about his imaginary love life for god knows how many times, Raiga was becoming a bit fed up. And as such, he couldn't resist an opportunity to take being creepy and annoying to a whole new level. Yet it was still nothing short of completely horrifying for the others, who had to watch the sheer horror creep up on Kisame's – now extremely pale face, as he felt Raiga's arms snake around his waist. "RAIGA!"

Although, Kisame himself found it rather difficult to say anything in this situation. Frankly, the only thing he could do was pass out, which played right into Raiga's hands. "...See, he totally just fell into my arms, has he ever fallen into your arms? No, didn't think so, he clearly loves me more."

"No, he loves me the most! You've just creeped him out. Now get your hands off my Kisame. I thought we were friends, Raiga... how could yo-"

"Bored now." Raiga sighed, releasing his grip on Kisame and letting the shark-man fall to the floor. Much to the disgust of Tatsuya, who immediately rushed to his side, muttering various things about being a doctor.

"You know Raiga," Choujuurou said, pretty much startling everyone who up until this point had completely forgotten he had even come with them, "you really shouldn't upset Tatsuya like that, he-"

"SHUT UP CHOUJUUROU!" Tatsuya screamed, temporarily stopping himself from mummifying Kisame with bandages he had pulled out from god only knows where. "Why are you always picking on Raiga?"

"Yeah, you could really hurt his feelings..." Zabuza added in with a kind of mocking sympathy. Choujuurou then looked to Kyouki, as if – for some unknown reason, he thought that she would act like the voice of reason.

"You're just a bad person." She shrugged.

Probably the only thing which kept everyone from making an attempt at driving Choujuurou to suicide that very moment was the creaking open of the door. If it was anyone else's parents, they would probably have had much more to say about seeing their child unconscious on the floor. However, Erosame was a bit different from the average parent and so the others couldn't tell whether they were relieved or disturbed when the only thing he had to say was, "Too much excitement for one day, eh?"

"You guys, I have an important announcement to make," Mangetsu stood up, as if he had been summoned by Erosame saying eh, "whilst I was over there... crying my heart out I was, thinking about my life and trying to... I don't know what I was trying to do, but I discovered something enlightening."

"That you're in love with your best friend?" Zabuza asked, receiving nothing but a blank stare from Mangetsu in response, "Kyouki. That woman. Over there. The one who's glaring at me."

"...no, it was tha-"

"You're gay?"

Raiga let out a small smirk, "I wouldn't get your hopes up Zabuza, even if he was you wouldn't be his type."

"That's not what I meant, Gary Glitter. Besides who the hell else would he like? I'm way better looking than you."

"Oh please, you're terrifying. Your only redeemable features are the bandages which obscure your hideously unattractive face."

"I'm terrifying? I'm terrifying? At least my face doesn't look like a baboon's ass!"

"Well at least my hair doesn't look like it's been cut with hedge clippers. You-"

What Zabuza and Raiga hadn't realised whilst verbally assaulting each other, was that irrespective of whether they were paying attention to him or not, Mangetsu was going to carry on with his story. Thus, when Kyouki's yell of "KISAME YOU FATASS!" came, they found themselves being more than just a little confused.

"He's not fat! He's just very muscley!" Tatsuya muttered to himself, although now that Kisame had regained consciousness he was rather hoping that he would overhear... and then fall madly in love with him.

"No... no I'm fat..." Kisame said as he attempted to sit up, not even bothering to question why he was now completely wrapped in bandages, "honestly Tatsuya, you probably wouldn't want to be with a fatty like me... I will completely understand if you stop stalking me because of it."

"Oh Kisame, I'm not in love with you because of your looks... it's your wonderful personality that made me fall for you."

Kisame spent some time weighing up in his head which was worse – being on the receiving end of Tatsuya's affection or Kyouki's rage, and even if there were times when he found both to be absolutely unbearable, he still felt like a complete idiot for not working out the lesser of two evils sooner. "...So you were yelling at me?"

"How dare you treat Mangetsu like shit just because he doesn't love you back! You shouldn't act like such a tit towards the one you love!"

"He doesn't love Mangetsu... he loves me! Isn't that right Kisame? Tell them how much you love me...please."

"Look, all of you," Kisame attempted to think of a good enough way to get himself out of this situation, although the only excuse he could give made it sound as though he was trying to convince himself more so than anyone else. "I don't like men...or women... I like sharks."

"...so you're a furry?" Kyouki asked, narrowing her eyes in disgust. Which upon actually looking around, Kisame realised was the same reaction everyone else was having.

"No, no it... it doesn't count, I'm part shark!"

"It still counts!" Zabuza practically screamed at him, he had to admit that when someone else's sexuality came into question "Kisame's a furry~ Kisame's a furry~"

Amidst all the singing and disgust, all that Erosame could do was let out a heavy sigh, "I hope you all realise that we have deviated ridiculously from the plot. Yes, Kisame I am very proud that you have finally started taking an interest in sex, I would have prefered it if you had started with women... maybe even just people in general... but anyway, we've arrived at Canada."


	19. Cousins Don't Count As Incest, Right?

_A/N: Soo... it's been a while, eh? Sorry about that... I really don't have an excuse for not updating other than, I was too lazy to finish most of this chapter... until now. Well, as per usual, absolutely nothing of importance happens in this chapter! _

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"Here we are, New Glasgow." Erosame said, stepping out onto the deck of the ship and waving his arms in a rather flamboyant manner.

"What the hell is this?" The expression on Mangetsu's face was nothing short of complete and utter disgust. The entirity of his relationship with Canada had been based off of pictures he had seen of Whistler and Quebec, but this... this was something else.

"It's Canada, your girlfriend."

"Well she has let herself go..."

"So, are you going to break up with her or what?" Raiga asked, as it happened, he had done absolutely no research on what exactly the age of consent was in Canada, and was eager to return home where he could safely maintain his 'ultimate pedofile' status.

"Shh," Mangetsu pressed a finger against Raiga's abnormally large lips, completely ignoring the 'I'm going to murder you' look that the older man was giving him "these sort of things need to be done right, I need some time to talk to Canada alone..."

"Maybe I should stay with him," Tatsuya gazed sympathetically over at Mangetsu "you know, so he doesn't do anything far too drastic..." his tone was almost sincere enough to be convincing.

"Shut up Tatsuya and get on the boat." Kisame said, grabbing the back of Tatsuya's shirt and yanking him back onto the boat... probably for the best, if they had actually let him go only two things could have happened. One, Mangetsu would end up being raped by Tatsuya... or two, Tatsuya would get lost and be bound to forever wander the streets of Canada, crying out for Frank. "My dad says the ultimate treasure isn't far from here..."

"You are so lazy Choujuurou, we have travelled across the world and you have done the grand total of one thing! How can you contribute so little? What do you even have to say for yourself?"

"I tried to speak earlier... b-but you punched me... and I was unconscious for awhi-"

".Choujuurou. Why is it that you never stop talking? I am sick and tired of your voice being the only thing I can ever hear!"

"...What was the point of that?" Raiga narrowed his eyes at the green-haired girl, it was times like these that reminded him of how there was absolutely no question as to who in the organisation she was related to.

"I hadn't heard his voice for awhile... I thought if he didn't speak soon I'd end up forgetting why I hated him... then I might have actually tolerated him."

"Well... We've reached the island. My dad says we have to go help him look for the cave of secrets..." Kisame's voice was completely flat, he swore that if they were there any longer he would just have to commit suicide.

"This is by far the worst god damn treasure hunt I have ever been on."

In the end, it didn't even take much looking, all the jungles and deserts which Erosame had warned them of during their journey were nothing more than a miniture zen garden and a brief walk through a park. And there went their chances of even trying to convince the Mizukage that they had been on a mission the whole time.

"At last I've found it. The most precious treasure. The ultimate porn!" Erosame held the DVD case high above his head, as if it were the Holy Grail.

"...How much would you piss yourself laughing if it was empty?" Raiga muttered under his breath to Kyouki, who merely nodded in return.

"Don't be silly, no one would be careless enough to misplace such an important DVD" There was a moment of silence as Erosame opened the case... followed by a rather nervous laugh on his part... and then an extremely loud and uncontrollable laugh on Raiga's. "...Where the hell is it? Seriously, has one of you guys taken it? Okay, jokes over, give it back..."

"Relax, I have that one back at the base..." Zabuza inspected the front of the case as if it were something you would find in a dark alley rather than an ultimate and all powerful treasure.

"...Really?"

"Yeah, yeah... it's like... in the amateur section or something like that..."

"I fucking told you so!"

"Can we please just go pick up Mangetsu and go home... I just want to go home..." Kisame grumbled to himself, finding it hard to believe that it was actually possible for him to long for blood-stained and deeply depressing streets of the Mist Village.

An hour later, and they had returned to the shore where the left Mangetsu. Who, by the looks of it, hadn't moved an inch since they departed.

"Where have you guys been? You left me here... all alone with no one to talk to!"

"I wanted to stay with you!" Tatsuya yelled, immediately rushing to be by Mangetsu's side. "Clearly I am your only true friend." He folded his arms, and stared down at his feet, rather like a sulking four year old.

"Shut up and get on the boat." Kisame sighed, even if this time it was Mangetsu's turn to suffer, he really didn't want to put up with all of Tatsuya's ridiculous babbling. "I want this over with as fast as possible."

"Well, if you're going to be so rude about it -"

"I don't care, Tatsuya. Just get on the boat."

"No, I am sick of you and your attitude." Tatsuya snapped, his eyes welling up with tears."It pains me to say it, but I am breaking up with you. Lately you've been acting way too grumpy, and it's just... it's too much for me to cope with. I'm sorry, don't try to get me back, I've made up my mind, it's for the best."

The next few minutes were filled with Tatsuya glaring at a rather blank looking Kisame, they were both so silent that you could have heard a pin drop. However, it didn't take long for that blissful, albeit brief silence to be broken by Kisame's manical laughter.

"...Well that just turned my day around, I feel like having a party."

Only a few more minutes into the journey, and Mangetsu heard the door to his room creek open and even though he was from what was possibly the most notoriously violent village ever known, he couldn't help but feel a horrible shiver pass down his spine.

"...Mangetsu?"

"Is something wrong Tatsuya?" Mangetsu asked, somewhat suspicious that after several months of ignoring eachother's existence, Tatsuya had actually decided to speak to him. "Are you still upset about Kisame because really I doubt it would have worked out..."

"No, no... I just came to see how you were."

A sudden feeling of fear washed over Mangetsu, after many years around Tatsuya he had learnt to be immediately suspicious of any attempt at 'being friendly' from the older man. Yet, not wishing to cause any further problems, Mangetsu decided that rather than telling Tatsuya to just get out and thus, promoting the mother of all rants, it was probably best just to give him a brief answer, in the hope that he'd get bored and run off on a new conquest. "I...I'm fine, couldn't be better."

"Oh okay, I also just came to say that, I love you and I want you to go out with me."

It honestly didn't surprise Mangetsu. From the minute Tatsuya had opened the door he had seen this moment coming. It's not like Tatsuya didn't go through a phase of 'being in love with' just about every member of the Seven Swordsmen. When Kyouki had first joined, he had somehow manage to completely ignore the fact that she was blatantly a girl, stalk her for two days and then attempt to marry her. Afterwards claiming that he had thought she was a man all along and the skirt 'just made him a bit of a character'. Yet there was one thing which really did baffle Mangetsu about Tatsuya's infatuation with him. "Uhh... You... you're aware that we're cousins right?"

"What?"Tatsuya's eyes widened, "Don't be silly, I would never hit on my cousin. We can't be related... How could I not know this? I mean, surely your family would have come over to visit like the woman's did. That's it, this is all her fault, she's always doing this! She wants to take everyone away from me so that I'll be all alone. Well, at least she won't be able to do it for much longer."

"...What?" Mangetsu arched an eyebrow, he had thought that Tatsuya would have at least asked for an explaination of how the two of them were related, or if it was a particularly good day, just take his word for it and leave. "That makes absolutely no sense... won't be able to do it for much longer... are you what? Intending to kill her?"

"No, I've kind of been beaten to that..." Tatsuya muttered, looking up to see that Mangetsu still had a completely bewildered expression plastered across his face. "Oh? You don't know? I thought she would have told you. She has cancer, I heard her and Raiga talking about it."

"What...?"

"Yep she has cancer, and I hope it's aggressive. Well, I'll see you later. Don't tell anyone about this by the way, I wouldn't want my perfect reputation ruined by people thinking that I hit on my cousin."

And with that, Tatsuya left, slamming the door behind him, eager to forget that he had been rejected... again. And just praying that elsewhere on the ship, everyone else was having an equally bad time. Which, unbeknownst to him, they were.

"So... Mangetsu's single now?" Zabuza said to Kyouki, who glared back at him. "You should make your move."

"Shut up, Zabuza."

"But if you don't do it now then someone else will, I'm just looking out for you...or some shit like that..."

Kyouki bit down on her lip, trying to weigh up the options of just outright punching Zabuza in the face, or simply screaming at him until she passed out from lack of oxygen. Although, being as lazy as she was, she didn't really feel up to doing either of them, and settled for her favourite method; changing the subject entirely. "Why are you even hanging out here? Isn't this Kisame's room? Were you waiting to talk to him? You should just go in, I mean, I'm sure he loves spending time with you, Zabuza..."

"What? I don't-"

"Don't be silly, here let me help you." She then shoved Zabuza a little more violently than she had intended, causing him to crash through Kisame's door, and land on the floor... staring up at Kisame... who just so happened to be shirtless.

"..."

"..."

"Aren't you glad you came in Zabuza?" Kyouki said, smiling in the most patronizing manner she could manage. "I mean, look at those abs, you could grate cheese off of them... Well, I guess I'll just leave you two love birds alone."

Although she instantly regretted leaving Zabuza and Kisame behind when, upon turning the corner, she was greeted with a loud and ear-splitting shriek.

"KYOUKI!" Mangetsu yelled, grabbing her by the shoulders with such a force that it could have knocked her soul straight out of her body... if it were possible for Mist ninja to have such a thing. "You have cancer? Why didn't you tell me?"

"I...have...cancer?" She replied, with what she thought was apparent uncertainty.

"So it's true! Why would you tell Raiga and not me?"

"Oh...that..." She sighed, honestly thinking Mangetsu would have more sense than this... although that was a bit of an unrealistic expectation. "No, I don't have cancer. I am a cancer."

"...what?" Mangetsu now looked more confused that ever before. "what... what kind of cancer are you?"

"...the crab." She replied, moving her hands about to look like claws, as if Mangetsu was a child who needed to learn the word crab for the first time. Still, he looked incredibly confused. "...I was born in July, my star sign is Cancer... Cancer is a crab."

"Oh..." he loosened his grip on her shoulders, sighing heavily as he did so "I'm sorry... it's just a very difficult time for me, I feel like... like I can't trust anyone."

No sooner had he finished his sentence than Mangetsu felt an arm slink around his shoulders "You can trust-"

"Tatsuya, we're cousins. Go away."

"Oh yeah, Zabuza~"

Needless to say, the journy home was like a living hell for quite a few of the members, filled with much screaming and crying... and Choujuurou. Although within a few days of returning to the Mist Village, some of them would have happily returned to Canada...


	20. The Melancholy of Kisame Hoshigaki

**_A/N: Okay so... this is part one of something that was way too long to post as one chapter! I really do commend you if you even do make it through this part :D_**

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When Kisame awoke in the morning, he felt different in many ways; for a start, he was a lot smaller, most of his limbs felt lighter – as if he had lost weight, perhaps the only thing that felt unlike being drunk to him was the strange weight he now felt on his chest. Although strangest of all to him was the fact that he woke up in somewhere completely unfamiliar, unlike his usual near-empty room, he was now bombarded with bright colours and various pieces of tat he couldn't see any reasonable person ever having the need for.

"...Where?... Where the hell am I? Did I get drunk again...? What the fuck is going on?" he stumbled about as he got out of bed, clutching his head in an attempt to stop a sudden onset of dizziness. His body felt unusually light that morning to the point that he felt ridiculously unsteady on his feet, as if he had been stripped of all his muscle in the middle of the night. That however, was not the only thing that made him feel more than a little uncomfortable. Only seconds after he had steadied himself on his feet he heard the door behind him slam open, followed by an aray of various swear words... although most disconcerting of all was the fact that, when he finally turned round to look at the figure, he found himself confronted with a strangely familiar looking figure. In fact, if he hadn't been concious at that moment in time, he would have sworn he was having an 'out of body experience' because the man who stood before him, in every way shape and form... appeared to be himself.

"Hey, who are you? What the hell is going on?"

"Kisame... don't turn around." They replied, ignoring just about everything Kisame had said to them.

"How do you know my name? Where the hell am I?"

"No Kisame, don't turn round!" The man outstretched a hand, as if he were about to grab Kisame and force him to keep still, their actions however simply weren't quick enough and before they could stop him, Kisame caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror behind him. It was a lot worse than he had imagined that morning... he was a woman."I told you not to turn around, what did you do? You turned around and almost had a heart attack, nice work."

"W-what are these?" he asked, patting the area of his chest where he had felt the unfamiliar weight.

"They're called boobs... STOP TOUCHING THEM!"

"...Okay so..." Kisame began, trying to stop himself from hyperventalating, if only because it would mean he wouldn't have to once again, put his hand on his chest and molest himself... or herself, frankly he wasn't quite sure what he identified as today. "I'm a woman... and... I'm wearing a hockey shirt as pyjamas... So, if I'm Kisame... only in Kyouki's body does that mean you're...?"

"Yep."

"Oh, god this is horrible."

"Hey! My body is fucking incredible, you should be grateful you get to see it up close!"

"...But... but I don't want to be a woman. I want to be a man... with a penis."

"Oh please, it's not like it's a _big deal _even if you do just so happen to have two." There was a moment of incredibly awkward silence, before Kyouki finally noticed the visable distress on Kisame's face, if she were any less vain she could have simply passed it off as not being used to seeing her own facial expressions. "Yeah, that was quite surprising... I thought that was just a rumour."

"...YOU LOOKED?"

"Well, I needed to go to the bathroom, and I wasn't about to wait for you to wake up... that whole taking a piss whilst standing up thing is a lot harder than it sounds... especially with two."

"I-I-I..." Kisame began stuttering, already feeling his face turn scarlett... which admittedly, he was quite grateful for. Never before in his life had his skin been so devoid of colour, mind you today seemed like it was going to be full of new and grueling experiences for Kisame.

"Oh, that just reminds me, I wanted to ask you something. Say I wake up in the morning... and I have like, a boner. What should I do about it? I mean, can I just have a cold shower or do I actually have to do something about it. You know, _deal with it_."

"Do you... listen to what you're saying before you talk? You just asked if you had to have a wank! I can't believe you just asked me that...do you have any shame about this whatsoever?"

"None at all." She grinned, making Kisame quite grateful that he was eternally grumpy... his 'smiling face' was a little more than he himself could bare. "So back to my question, morning wood?"

"What are you doing in here Kisame...?" This was probably the first, and only, time Kisame could ever say he was grateful for Mangetsu's presence.

"Oh, he was just about to tell me about his morning boners." Kyouki replied, instantly forgetting that, in Mangetsu's eyes, she was Kisame.

"...What?" Mangetsu narrowed his eyes, in an expression that could have been either confusion or disgust.

"I mean... uhh... I... SHUT UP!" She managed to stutter out after a while, not quite sure how exactly Kisame would usually react to Mangetsu. Kisame himself however, grimaced. If there were going to be stuck like that for any great length of time he would definitely have to give her lessons in insulting Mangetsu. Mind you, he didn't really want that... god only knows what kind of lessons he would have to get for whatever it was she and Mangetsu did together. "I have to go now... I uh... hate you... yeah... you remember that."

"Why are you still in your pyjamas? Get changed."

"...You're not going to watch me, are you?"

"No." Mangetsu sounded as though the question had actually hurt him. "I never watch you... why would I start today? Now you go get changed, I'll go get the stuff for your hair and then we can... oh, you know..."

You know? You know? No, Kisame could honestly say that he didn't know, and the vague note that Mangetsu had ended his sentence on before doing some... awkward looking half-skip, half-walk out of the room, really was not comforting to Kisame. Matters didn't exactly improve after Kisame got changed either, to begin with he found himself feeling obligated to get dressed with his eyes closed, which meant he fell over several times and by the end of it wasn't quite sure if he had actually managed to put everything on the right way round. Then, there was the whole issue of how ridiculously exposed he felt, it's not as if he hadn't previously noticed that Kyouki was extremely scantily clad... it just felt so much more wrong now that it was him who had to dress like that.

There was only one way Kisame felt he could actually lay his mind to rest. Well, two. However, asking Mangetsu was completely out of the question as far as he was concerned... and as in Mangetsu's eyes, Kisame was in fact Kyouki... he may have ended up doing more harm than good. And so, he set out to find Kyouki. His first instinct was to check the bathtub, because it seemed like the kind of place she would assume the shark man spent the vast majority of his time, although upon doing so, he found only several million spiders and a plastic helicopter... which belonged to Tatsuya, no doubt. As it turns out Kyouki was in the last place he would have expected to find her, his office. And, to his surprise, from where he was standing, it actually looked like she was doing work... on closer inspection, it turned out she had just taken various crayons and scribbled on the paper. Kisame held back a sigh, when he was back in his own body he would have so much work to do, although he was glad Kyouki was at least making the effort to masquerade as him, instead of lurking in the bottom of swimming pools and scaring small children.

"Kyouki!" He tried to divert her attention before she began drawing rainbows on his paperwork. "I have to ask... you two don't... do it, do you?"

"No. God, we're friends. Why does everyone ask that?" Kisame assumed the expression Kyouki pulled was that of complete and utter disgust... Or was it anger? He was beginning to realise it was difficult to read the emotions of a shark.

"Because you two sleep in the same the bed? You're both clingy and overly attached to each other and I'll be honest, I'm still not entirely convinced that you don't change in front of him."

"...Shut up. I don't go asking you and Zabuza that."

"Yeah but that's different, me and Zabuza aren't...as weird as you two... besides you asked me that yesterday..."

"Details, details... what day is it?"

"Wednesday."

"Oh, oh well it's mountain day for you. Good luck!" And with that she turned back to the various important documents that she had now begun to draw stars and flowers on, awkwardly shooing Kisame away with one large blue hand.

"Where were you?" No sooner had Kisame left the room than he was confronted by a rather concerned looking Mangetsu.

"I uhh... felt ill..." Why Kyouki might lurk in his office whenever she felt ill, Kisame didn't know but he instantly regretted saying it, when he swore he saw something snap in Mangetsu. Which, judging from how quickly Kyouki had recovered from the flu a few months ago, could only be one thing... nurse mode.

"Ill? Really? Do you have a fever or something? Come here." Before Kisame could react Mangetsu had grabbed him by the wrist, pulling him close enough to place a hand on his forehead. Now, Kisame was beginning to doubt he'd ever adjust to the lack of muscular strength he had. "You should go back to bed. Right now."

"No, no I uhh... I just saw Kisame's face is all...?"

"Oh," Mangetsu quickly released his grip, smiling sympathetically "I feel like that sometimes too..."

"Yeah, that Kisame... don't we just hate him? He's such a dick..."

"No, we've never said we hated him before..."

In the hours that followed, Kisame was just grateful that what Kyouki had meant by 'mountain day' was in fact, just being dragged up a mountain by Mangetsu. Although he swore this was one of the few times he could claim he was having a worse day than Zabuza, he was desperately wrong...


	21. Even Snape Wouldn't Love You

"Hey Zabuza, I brought you some juice... do you want me to get you anything else?" Tatsuya smiled, placing a glass of strange purple liquid down in front of Zabuza.

"No... no I'm good..." Zabuza looked at Tatsuya suspiciously, of course it wasn't completely random and out of the blue for Tatsuya to do several, largely unwanted favours for Zabuza. However, this week Zabuza had only managed to tolerate it because he swore that the purple-haired man was out to get Kisame... or was it Mangetsu? He could never really keep track. Zabuza settled on waiting for Tatsuya to leave the room, and then simply pouring the juice down the sink... just in case of rohypnol. However, after what felt like an eternity of Tatsuya just standing there, a childlike smile plastered over his face, Zabuza hesitantly took a sip of whatever it was Tatsuya had just given him. He was then surrounded by a thick, and probably poisonous cloud of smoke, the last thing he could hear being an excited squeal from Tatsuya.

"...Oh my god. It worked, Zabuza it worked! I. Am. A. Genius." He squealed, picking up a greyish blob from the floor and holding it up to his face. "God, you are just the cutest jellyfish ever. I knew it would work on you, you were always the most supportive. Come on let's go show you to the others."

"Raiga, Raiga... look it's Zabuza!"

"Tatsuya did you kidnap a jellyfish and name it after Zabuza?" It was an odd feeling having sympathy for a jellyfish, Raiga had to say. But then again, he couldn't imagine anything worse than being kidnapped by Tatsuya, no matter what species you were... except of course, being married to Choujuurou, that was a truly awful thing.

"No, that would be crazy." Tatsuya replied, Raiga arched an eyebrow... Tatsuya wasn't seriously about to claim that the jellyfish came along of its own free will, was he? "I made a magic potion and turned Zabuza into a jellfish!"

Raiga inhaled deeply, he could have punched himself for not seeing that one coming. Although admittedly he wasn't sure exactly why Tatsuya had decided to become a witch in lieu of a ninja."...why?"

"So I can go to Hogwarts, do potions and be Snape's favourite pupil!"

"Tatsuya," Raiga sighed, in spite of Tatsuya's age, he sometimes reminded Raiga of a four year old boy, and Raiga never really had to lecture small children, it was always more a case of 'get in the van and don't tell your parents', "you're too old, you're 25."

"SHUT UP, I CAN DREAM."

Raiga sighed once more, saying anything more on the matter would probably just send Tatsuya into a fit of crying. Which as funny as it may have been the first thirty times Raiga had done it, was beginning to lose much of its former hilarity, now, he would much rather set off on the ultimate quest to make Zabuza cry, and considering that Zabuza's life was currently in peril was beginning to seem like a lost cause. "...You realise jellyfish die out of water, right?"

"But I'm holding him..." The younger man whined, as if being held would somehow sustain Zabuza's life.

"Tatsuya, give him here." Raiga said sternly, stretching his arms out.

"..."

"Tatsuya..."

"Fine."

"Now, you go run him a bath." Raiga sighed, it was going to be a long day...

"Okay, so..." Kisame walked into the lounge, still struggling with this whole 'balancing with a female body' thing and looking terribly scruffy after his adventure up a mountain, "you don't have sex, you don't bitch about the rest of us... what do you two do together?"

"You just went up a mountain, isn't that enough?" Kyouki asked, before squinting what were already incredibly small eyes, to take a look at exactly what Kisame had managed to do to her, once perfect, hair. "Actually, you look more like you've been dragged through a hedge backwards... if you don't get those leaves out of my hair Mangetsu'll have a fit."

"I... I, he said he was just going to get ready for the next thing we did. What have you been doing all day?"

"You know, just stuff." That answer was not in any way reassuring for Kisame, if anything it was more worrying than most other things he had heard today. "While you're here, I need to make one thing clear. No hitting on Mangetsu... or touching me. I realise this is the only chance you'll ever have to touch someone's boobs or anything like that, but it's still my body. So no molesting yourself or anyone else...And no doing anything with sharks, I'm not okay with that kind of stuff."

"If you think you can have a wank in my body then I can do whatever I want in yours." He replied, not that he intended to honour that promise, it was more a case of just trying to terrify Kyouki out of touching him.

"Fine. I just hope you get your period soon. Oh... and if you get to do that then I get to do this, Tatsuya!" She stopped the purple-haired man in his tracks, as he waltzed through the lounge, carrying a pail of salt water for god knows what reason. Although as soon as she brought herself to her feet, she felt incredibly awkward now that she was towering over him for a change. "Listen, I couldn't help but notice that you and Zabuza have been getting... closer, lately. It's opened my eyes to how wrong I was, how much I wan- No, need you. I was wrong to ever let you go. Will you marry me?"

"Oh Kisame..." Tatsuya replied, oh yes it could get worse... much, much worse. "you can't believe how happy I am right now. I've been trying to get over you... but my heart just refused to move on. Let's elope, we could be married by tonight."

"No, no." Kyouki said, for a moment Kisame could have sworn she was showing the slightest bit of humanity...until she looked straight into Tatsuya's eyes and said "We should do this properly, in... two weeks from today, we'll meet at the church and get married."

Tatsuya didn't say another word, he just let out a girlish squeal and skipped merrily out of the room. Much to both Kisame and Kyouki's relief... if anything else had happened the would probably both been sick.

"You...you...oh my god... I don't... there aren't..." Kisame struggled to find the words for how much he hated Kyouki at that very moment in time (frankly, he would have just slit her throat there and then if he didn't think it would end up killing him too.) all the while, the pale skin on the body he now inhabited turning and incredible shade of scarlet.

"Kyouki, you really don't look well..." "are you sure you don't want to go back to bed?"

"NO! I am fine. Nothing's wrong!"

"...What is wrong with you today? You are so moody, and it's not even your time of the month."

"...unfortunately." Kyouki muttered under her breath, she would really have loved to see Kisame go through his first period.

"...You're right, I have been acting strange today... but it's not because I'm ill. It's because lately I've realised that I have feelings for you. Mangetsu, I love you."

"Well...that's just... perfect. Now we can do all the stuff couples do. We should have a picnic to celebrate, I'll go make one!" Mangetsu then immediately turned and left the room, though surprisingly in a much more contained manner than Tatsuya had.

"...Was he already in love with you or did he just adjust really fast?"

"The latter, probably. I remember when he had loads of other friends, then I told him that he was my best friend and he abandoned them all. I abandoned all my friends too... not entirely by choice..."

"Oh god, I'm going out with Mangetsu..."

"You really should start using your brain" She said, tapping Kisame on the forehead and then pausing for a minute, astounded at how hollow her own head sounded. "...you're going to have to deal with the consequences now."

"Oh god, what's he going to do?"

"Well, it'll probably start with holding hands in public. Then after a couple of days he'll start hugging even more. _Then_'ll come the kisses... I'd give it a year at least before what your worried about comes along."

"That's disgusting."

"Oh please, you would if you could."

"So, Tatsuya has been testing his potions on you two as well?" Raiga said, emerging from the shadows like he always did at the most inopportune moments.

"What?" Kyouki asked, although in Kisame's voice it sounded more like a threat than anything else.

"Yep. Tatsuya has been making magic potions, Zabuza for example, is now a jellyfish."

"...GOD DAMN HIM!" 

"It's okay though, I know how to fix it. I just need a clean environment..." Raiga said, trying to suppress a smile he could feel tugging on the corners of his freakishly large lips. "You two clean up, and I don't just mean this room... the whole base needs to be clean."

Several hours later, Kyouki and Kisame returned to the lounge after having cleaned the whole base from top to bottom, something which, if they were any less desperate to get their own bodies back, would have taken them years. In their absence, Raiga had managed to mix together a concoction of everything vaguely edible from the cupboards, along with tap water. "Now, I have made this drink from different herbs, it will be needed to start the process."

"What the hell is this Raiga?" Kyouki asked, practically vomiting after only smelling the 'magical drink'.

"Now, for this next step," he said, completely ignoring Kyouki, "I am in need of clean clothes... otherwise it won't work, go pick up my dry cleaning."

"Why do we-"

"Because I am working on making this area enchanted, I cannot do that, unless I have my full concentration. If I don't, you'll be stuck like that forever. Now, if you don't mind..."

Many hours and pointless tasks later, they both arrived back at the base, completely exasperated, their patience with Raiga running extremely thin. "Okay Raiga," Kisame said, "we've cleaned the base, drunk your stupid potion, picked up your dry cleaning, done the rest of your laundry, paid off your child support, we tried to find Choujuurou for his endurance training but he's missing, we even threw Orochimaru down a well... when is any of this going to work?"

"Okay, okay. I'll start the actual spell now..." Raiga took great pleasure in the enraged expressions he soon saw form on their faces, "I need you two to be fairly close... so I want you to hug."

"...really?"

"Yeah you know, the closer you are, the less distance your spirit has to travel. It just makes things easier." After the two of them had finally managed to get into a rather awkward hug without suffocating each other, Raiga decided he hadn't quite crushed their souls enough, "No, no that's not working. You see, the spirit passes out of your mouth, so you need to make the link there..."

"Go to hell, Raiga."

"Fine, fine but seriously, you both need to be _as close as possible _so you know... try and think of a way that you can both be as close as possible... as if you were almost one person..."

"You're not even trying to help us are you?" Kisame asked, narrowing his eyes... why they had ever trusted Raiga from the outset was a mystery to him.

"No. It'll wear off after a day anyway."

"...I hate you."

"Well, you enjoy the rest of the day with Mangetsu," Kyouki turned to leave, narrowly avoiding hitting her head off of the door frame, "especially night time. I mean, he will hug you but don't worry about his wandering hands, he doesn't mean anything by it."

"Oh, yeah you enjoy your night with Tatsuya, he will spoon you and you should worry about his wandering hands... he means everything by it."

The next morning, Kisame was relieved to find that he was back to his old self, however strange it may have been for Raiga to actually be telling the truth. Still, he found that in spite of him being back in his own body, Kyouki still had rather a lot to answer for...

"Why did it take me ten minutes to get out of my room this morning?"

"I had to bolt your door shut and move everything in front of it so that I could stop Tatsuya from getting in. I kept waking up to hear him scratching on the door." She shuddered slightly at the memory of it, "How was your picnic with Mangetsu?"

"Long. He talked the whole time, I didn't listen to any of it. I don't know... I said some stuff you'll hate me for later. Also, why does my head hurt and why could I almost not fit into my clothes this morning?"

"Well, the head thing is because I kept bumping into stuff... I'm scared of heights, it was confusing for me... and the weight well... I ate a lot. And I mean, _a lot; _all the food here, all the food at my brother's house, everything at Ao's, everything at the local shops and... many, many Happy Meals. I also paid a visit to Sea World to 'apologise', turns out angelfish are quite delicious... lionfish not so much." She paused for a moment, her facial expression changing from amusement to concern, "Oh, and it's probably best you know that while I was at Ao's... something happened."

"...What?"

"Well, we were having a chat and er... he touched your nipples." Kisame's face contorted into a look of sheer horror, "I got out of there straight after that, but just don't be surprised if you have a new stalker...Oh, yes and I bit the Mizukage."

"You...bit the Mizukage?"

"Well, she looked at me funny!"

"Of course she did! You were a shark!"

"Kisame!" Tatsuya said, waltzing into the room and throwing his arms around the disgruntled shark man, "I missed you last night!"

"TATSUYA!" Zabuza burst through the doors not long after Tatsuya made his entrance, only a towel draped around him, "I woke up naked in a bathtub! WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?"


End file.
